California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



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that a man can discover his real disposition. 

 A hast3' temper only supposes itself properly 

 alive; an iudoleiit iudulger imagines he is as 

 active as any one; but by close and severe 

 examination each may discover something 

 nearer the truth. 



Thinking is, indeed, the very germ of self- 

 cultivation — the source from which all vital 

 intfuence springs. Thinking will do much 

 for an active mind, even in the absence of 

 books, or living instructors. The reasoning 

 faculty grows firm, expands, discerns its own 

 power, acts with increasing facility, precision 

 and extent, under all its privations. Where 

 there is no privation, but every help from 

 former thinkers, how much may we not ex- 

 pect from it! Thus great characters rise. 

 While he who thinks little, though much he 

 Bees, can hardly call anything he has his own. 

 He trades with borrowed cajiital, and is on 

 the high road to literary, or rather to mental, 

 bankruptcy. 



How to Eat an Orange. 



A correspondent of the Jlume Journal writes: 

 Always on a Southern gentleman's table the 

 dessert of oranges is furnished with small 

 silver fruit-knives and spoons. The orange 

 is held in a najikin — just as you hold an egg 

 — and with the slender point of the knife a 

 circular incision is carefully made made in the 

 stem end of the orange, and the stem core is 

 nicely cut out, leaving an orifice large enough 

 for an egg-spoon. The orange is held and 

 eaten then, just as gourmands eat an egg, in 

 its own shell; and the skill and grace with 

 which this is done — that is, without soiling 

 the lingers or na]jkin — are, as in the same 

 process with the egg, a test of good breeding. 

 I have known the most inexpert person to 

 master the few difficulties in the way after 

 two or three efforts; and their satisfaction was 

 an infinitely pleasant sight. 



To the hostess who likes to have the table 

 preserve in some degree, at the close of an 

 entertainment, the beauty which dazzled the 

 guests upon entering, this method is most de- 

 sirable. Servants — let me put in a plea for 

 those silent ones whose interests are two sel- 

 dom regarded— are spared the tedious duty of 

 gathering up the fragments; and guests who 

 look with dismay at this tempting apple of 

 the Hesperides, can thus enjoy it as they 

 never did before. Only the delicious nectar 

 of the fruit is eaten, with the more delicate 

 pulp, the tough fibre— of which, indeed,there 

 is very little in an orange plucked from the 

 tree under its own skies — being left in the 

 shell. I trust you will try this method, which 

 ■we of the coast country along our Mississippi 

 river think is the only elegant way to get at 

 the heart of the matter. O, those dainty 

 dejninei-s of the past, with their fruit and 

 flowers, and wit, and grace, and rippling 

 laughter, in the fairest land that ever the 

 skies bent over, our Beautiful, our Desolate. 



What Might be Done. 



The following is an extract from a speech of 

 r. T. Barnum at Philadelphia: 



I will undertake, and give bonds for the 

 fulfillment of the contract, that if the city of 

 I'hiladelphia will stop selling liquor and give 

 me as much as was exiiendcd hero for liquor 

 last year, to run the city next year, I will pay 

 all the city exjjenses (pause); no person liv- 

 ing within her borders shall pay taxes 

 (pause); there shall be no insurance on pro- 

 perty (jianse); a good dress and suit shall be 

 given to every poor boy, girl, man and woman 

 (pause); all the educational expenses shall bo 

 paid (pause); a barrel of tlour shall bo given 

 to every needy and worthy person (sensation); 

 and I will clear a half miilion or a million dol- 

 lars myself by the operation! (cries of "hur- 

 rah!") It would be the best business specu- 

 lation I was ever in. Unfortunately they 

 \youIdn't give it to me. As Benjamin Frank- 

 lin said, "we are paying too dear for our 

 whistle." 



gano Mil (ftivl 



5. 



Helping Papa and Mamma. 



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ft\LANTING the corn and potatoes, 

 HitJI Helping to Bcatter the Beods, 



f**' Feeding the hens and the chickens, 

 Freeing the garden from weeds, 

 Drivinj,' the cows to the paKture, 

 Feeding the horse in the stall — 

 We little children are busy; 

 Sure, there is work for lis all. 

 Helping papa. 



Spreading the hay in the sunshine. 



Raking it up when 't is dry. 

 Picking the apples and peaches 



Down in the orchard hard by. 

 Picking the grapes in the vineyard, 



Gathering-nuts in the Fall — 

 "We little children are busy: 



XeB, there is work for us all. 

 Helping papa. 



Sweeping, and washing the dishes, 



Bringing the wood from the shed. 

 Ironing, sewing, and knitting. 



Helping to make up the bed. 

 Taking good care of the baby. 



Watching her lest she should fall — 

 "We little children are busy: 



O, there is work for us all. 

 Helping mamma. 



"Work makes us cheerful and happy. 



Makes us both active and strong; 

 Play we enjoy all the better 



When we have labored so long, 

 Gladly we help our kind parents. 



Quickly we come at their call; 

 Children should love to be busy: 



There is much work for us all, 



Heljiing papa and mamma. 



A True Hero, 



A boy about nine years old was bathing one 

 day, when, by some mistake, he got into deep 

 water and began to sink. His elder brother 

 saw him, and ran to save him, but lacking 

 strength or skill, he also sank to the bottom 

 of the river. As the two drowning brothers 

 rose to the surface for the last time, they saw 

 a third brother, the youngest of the family, 

 running down the bank for the jjurpose of 

 trying to save them. Then it was that the 

 nine-year-old acted the part of a hero. Strug- 

 gling as he was with death, he gathered all 

 his strength, and cried to his brother on the 

 shore, "Don't come in, or father will lose aU 

 his boys at once!" 



Noble little fellow! Though during, he for- 

 got himself, and thought only of his father's 

 grief. He was a genuine hero. His brother 

 obeyed his dying comm.and, and was spared 

 to comfort his father when his two dead sous 

 were taken from the river clasped in each 

 others arms. 



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Mary was the proprietress of a diminutive, 

 incipient sheep, whose outer covering was as 

 devoid of color as congealed vajaor, and to all 

 localities to which Mary iieramlnilated, her 

 young Southdown was morally certain to fol- 

 low. It tagged her to the dispensatory of 

 learning, one diurnal section of time, which 

 was contrary to all precedent, and excited the 

 cachinnation of the seminary attendants, when 

 the children perceived the presence of the 

 young quadruped at the estabHshnieut of in- 

 struction. Consequently, the preceptor ex- 

 pelled him from the interior, but he continued 

 to remain in the immediate vicinity, and tar- 

 ried in the neighborhood without fretfulness 

 until Mary once more became visible. 



" Mother, mother," cried a young rook, 

 returning hurriedly from its first flight, "I'm 

 so frightened! I've seen such a sight!" 

 "What sight, my son?" asked the rook. "Oh! 

 white creatures, screaming and running, 

 straining their necks, and holding their heads 

 ever so high. See, mother, there they go!" 

 " Geese, my son; merely geese," calmly re- 

 plied the sapient parent bird. "Through 

 life, child, observe, that when you meet any 

 one who makes a great fuss about himself, 

 and tries to lift his head higher than the rest 

 of the world, you may set him down at once 

 to bo a goose." 



The Pineapple. 



The history of the pineapple dates back for 

 three or four centuries. Columbus found it 

 on the Island of Guadalupe in 14U2. The 

 •Japanese cultivated it as early as 1599, and if 

 is supposed that it was first brought to Eu- 

 rope from Jaua. It appears that this fruit 

 was transplanted from South America to Asia 

 and Africa; for, in lo\)'2, it was carried to Ben- 

 gal and China from that country. It thrived 

 in Brazil, and, according to Humboldt, grows 

 wild in the forest of Orinoco. They spoil 

 very easily, and sometimes during the voyage 

 here the whole cargo of a vessel is spoiled. It 

 is considered a good trip if three-fourths of a 

 cargo is in good condition when the vessel 

 arrives. This depends not only on the length 

 of the voyage, but also upon the bad weather 

 experienced, thunder showers being particu- 

 larly destructive to them. It is estimated 

 that four million two hundred thousand piue- 

 ajiples are brought into New York annually. 

 The business of canning this fruit is becoming 

 quite extensive, and likewise profitable, and 

 several firms are engaged in this j^reijaratiou, 

 and they put uj) at least a million pineapples 

 in cans every year. 



Treatment op Animaxs and Implements on 

 THE Farm. — Is not the following as applicable 

 to California as to the South '? If a southern 

 farmer wants a wagon he buys it where best 

 he can — most likely through some dry goods 

 merchant, who secures the sale by exhibiting 

 to the inquiring farmer a beautiful chromo, 

 painted with all the colors of the rainbow. 

 The vehicle is bought at the cost of a hund- 

 red dollars or more, possibly on a credit with 

 fifty per cent, profit to the vendor, and finally 

 reaches home as prett3' as a picture. Left in 

 the horse-lot on its arrival, there it stands, 

 subject to winter's rains or summer's suns, 

 except when in use, until every vestige of 

 paint has scaled ofl', nuts and bands become 

 loose, and wheels so rickety that the running 

 gear can scarcely sustain itself, when the 

 owner pronounces the manufacturer a cheat 

 and his wagon " no account." The same ve- 

 hicle, kept closely housed at all times, day 

 and night, except when in actual use, would 

 last almost a life-time and look fresh until it 

 is worn out. 



But to shelter these vehicles would require 

 the building of sheds, and building sh^ds ne- 

 cessitates spending money, and money is the 

 very thing we farmers do not have. This is 

 the excuse of many farmers who have no 

 shelter for vehicles on their farms, and not 

 very desirable stables or houses for their 

 stock in most cases. But it is an excuse 

 without reason, for there is not a farmer in 

 the South who cannot, by his own labor, free 

 of the expenditure of a dime, build a shed 

 that would shelter his implements from the 

 weather. 



The jjloughs, that might be secured some- 

 where under shelter, are seldom brought 

 nearer than a fence corner in the lot and 

 there left until the next time they are needed, 

 if it should not Ije for six months. — Rural 

 Carolinian for xipril. 



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The Pacific Jockey Club of San Francisco 

 oft'er a purse of $:!0,000 at their November 

 meeting, for a four-iuile-and-repeat race — • 

 SlS.UOtl to the first h(U-se, $G,OUO to the sec- 

 ond, $5,000 to the third, and $4,000 to the 

 fom-th. It seems that when there is so much 

 money to spend in stimulating the breeding 

 of race horses, our agricultural societies ought 

 to do something to encourage the raising of 

 fai'm and draft stock. If the sums above 

 mentioned were ort'ered to the men who in 

 five years from this time would exhibst tho 

 best home-bred farm horse, we doubt not tho 

 result would be beneficial to the State — iSenii- 

 Tropical Farmer. 



" Do you like codfish balls, Mr. Wigging?" 

 Mr. Wiggins, hesitatingly — "I really don't 

 know; I don't recollect attending one." 



