42 



California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



®0 OJ0MtriIrut0V!5. 



Write. 



BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLStES. 



Yfs, write, if you want to, there's nothing like 

 frying; 

 Who knows what a treasure your casket may 

 hold V 

 I'll show you that rhymiug's as easy as lying 

 If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold. 



Here's a book full of words; one can choose ns he 

 fancies, 

 As a painter his tint, as a worliman his tool; 

 Just think! all the i>nemB and plays and ro- 

 mances 

 Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a 

 pool ! 



You can wander at will through its syllahled 

 mazes. 

 And take all you want — not o copper they 

 cost — 

 What is there to hinder your pickingonr phrases 

 For an epic as clever as Paradise Loot? 



Don*t mind if the index of sense is at zero. 

 Use words that run smoothly, whatever they 

 mean; 

 Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero 

 Are much the same thing in the rhymiug ma- 

 chine. 



There are words so delicious their sweetnePswill 

 smother 

 That boarding-school flavor of which we're 

 afraid — 

 There is •■lush" in a good one, and "sv;irl" in 

 another — 

 Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made. 



With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes 

 Vou can cheat us of smiles when you've no- 

 thing to tell; 

 Vim hand us a nosegay of milliner's ruses 

 And we cry with delight, "Uh, how sweet they 

 do smell!" 



Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions 

 For winning the laurel to which you aspire 



By docking the tails of the two prepositions 

 1' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire. 



As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty 

 For ringing the chauges on metrical chimes, 



A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty, 

 Have filled the great basket with bushels of 

 rhymes. 



I,et me show you a picture — 't is far from iiTele- 

 vaut — 

 By a famous old hand in the arts of desim; 

 'Tis only a photoymphed sketch of an elephant— 

 The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt 

 of Rhine. 



How easy! no troublesome colors to lay nn, 

 It can't have fatigued him— no, not in the 

 least — 

 A dash here and there with a hap-hazard crayon, 

 And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, buggy- 

 limbed beast. 



Ju^jt .so with your verse— 't is as easy as sketch- 

 ing — 

 You can reel off a song without knitting your 

 brow, 

 An lightly as Remorandt a drawing or etching; 

 It 16 nothing at all, if you only know how. 



ADVANTAGES OF WRITING. 



We iii-e told that the pnet Cowper once 

 contribiitecl au artii'le to a perioiliciil 

 published in his time on the subjeot of 

 " Keeping a Secret." Although written 

 in a spirit of levity and banter, it had 

 siicli an effeot npon himself that he says 

 "lie never told a secret afterwards." We 

 do not know which most to admire, the 

 candor of the poet or the success of his 

 essay -at least upon himself. This little 

 incident shows what an efleet can be pro- 

 duced upon our minds and characters by 

 liiiiiing down our ideas occasionally and 

 I "Miring tliem out on paper to erystalize. 

 'I'hiy tlu-n become definite and tangible. 

 In the same line of thought, we are 

 told of a witty Frtmch philosopher who 

 said that when he wanted a book on any 

 particular subject, and could not iind it, 



\^ lie wrote one. And why should hf) not? 



i Jle has access to the same nuderials that 



I anyone else has, and why not put thi?m 



J in order? 



Writing upon any given theme is a 



wonderful eoUecter and condenser of 

 thonght. Ourideasat first come like the 

 invisible particles of moistiire that rise 

 from the Southern oceans. Ascending 

 to the sky above they soon form clouds 

 which, borne on the winds, flood the 

 northern regions of the earth with re- 

 freshing showers. So our ideas, vague 

 and misty at first, soon overspread the 

 canopy of the brain and flood the w hit- 

 ening fleld of manuscrii)t with inky 

 floods of thought. 



Indeed, the meditative writer will 

 often be astonished at the amount of his 

 knowledge on any given subject when he 

 attempts to write about it. His thoughts 

 will at first come slow and single, like 

 the twilight star.s of evening, but in a 

 little while his whole miud becomes il- 

 luminated with the twinkling gems of 

 thought. 



Walter Scott, as a school boy, was the 

 butt of the school, and his teacher pro- 

 nounced him a dunce. But Sir Walter 

 Scott, the novelist, historian and poet — 

 the Wizzard of the North — has enter- 

 tained the world with his witching stories, 

 instructed it with his histories and elec- 

 trified it with the i)atlios and sublimity 

 of his poetry. 



Buhver somewhere frankly acknow- 

 ledges that it was all up-hill business 

 with him when he first began to put pen 

 to paper. He was not only unable to 

 collect his ideas, but, unfortunately, he 

 had no ideas to collect! Can you im- 

 agine, kind reader, a more hopeless case 

 than this? And yet, behold his star, 

 proudly ascendant, shining brightly 

 among his peers in the galaxy of English 

 literature. 



AVe shall not touch upon innate ideas, 

 or acquired ones, either. W^e shall not 

 inquire whether the infant mind is a 

 tabula rasa — a virgin sheet of white paper 

 as yet not written upon, nor argue that 

 thought is or is not a secretion of the 

 brain, as milk is of the breast, and both 

 of them elaborated from the food by that 

 wonderful alchemist, the human stom- 

 ach. We care not whether according 

 to this materialistic theory, an ear of 

 Indian corn might be sent to Cengress 

 and electrify the nation with its elo- 

 quence. Nor shall we undertake to dis- 

 cuss such questions as the spiritualistic 

 theory, that it is to ministering angels 

 that ever hover around us, we owe all our 

 best and brightest thoughts. We will 

 not, therefore, be like the man who, 



" On hypothetic dreama and visions 

 Grounds everlasting disquisitions, 

 And raises endless controversies 

 On vulgar theorems and hear-says; 

 Grows positive and confident 

 In things so far beyond th' extent 

 Of human sense, he does not know 

 Whether they be at all or no!" 



But one thing we do know. The cul- 

 tivation of the faculties of the mind — 

 perception, observation, comparison, 

 reason, memory, or whatever they may 

 be called — strengthens them ; and the 

 attemijts to exjiress in written language 

 the results of that culture make each 

 efl'ort easier than the last, until the per- 

 severing writer acquires a facility of ex- 

 pression as astonishing to himself as it 

 is pleasing and instructive to his readers. 



But the point which we have attempt- 

 ed to niake in this article is to induce 

 the many and intcllig.^nt readers o( the 

 Agp.icultuiust to take up "the gray 

 goose quill" and become better acquaint- 

 ed with its use and power. "The pen is 

 mightier than the sword." Thei-e are 

 thousands of our readers, young and old, 

 of both sexes, who would Iind it greatly 

 to their benefit to jot down their 

 thoughts daily, about the house, the 

 farm, and the inillicm of topit's connected 

 with active life, its mission and its duties. 

 While we cannot all expect to gain great 

 renown as writers, we should feel it our 



duty to add our might to the general 

 fund of useful information. We who 

 can appreciate the benefits we receive 

 from the thoughts and experience of 

 others should be willing to give our own 

 for others' benefit. There is no farmer, 

 mechanic, or other industrial person, no 

 house-keeper or general observer, but 

 has some ideas and knowledge gleaned 

 from life that might be of iise to others. 

 A farmer who reads agricultural papers, 

 sees something occasionally that he 

 might criticise to advantage, and could 

 find time to talk about many jiractical 

 things. Then why not write down your 

 thoughts, and give us your experience? 

 We never yet talked with a housewife 

 who could not give some recipe, or who 

 had not some excellent rules for labor- 

 saving management. We want just such 

 jjractical ones to write. Your communi- 

 cations, if not used, will be respected. 

 We want the young men, and young 

 women to write. A little play of the 

 imagination is often refreshing. If we 

 cannot use every contribution we will be 

 frank with you, at any rate. Remember 

 ths prisoner's sjiider who did not reach 

 the opposite wall until after the iiftieth 

 attemjit. 



gggicitic. 



PRACTICAL HEALTH TOPICS- 

 NO. 2. 



(J\^N speaking on this subject I am 

 aware of undertaking a great and 

 exhaustive work, open to conjecture, 

 theory and research by learned men, 

 Kj as well as the various hobbies of the 

 ignorant and thoughtless ones. Still, a 

 few plain remarks on the subject, any- 

 thing, in fact, to set the people to think- 

 ing on so important a matter as the food 

 we eat, of which the blood is made, 

 which in turn supi^lies bone and muscle, 

 tissue and brain power, may not be 

 amiss from any source. It may be well 

 for us to see ourselves, in this Centen- 

 nial year of the nation's growth and 

 piide, as others see us and as we are — 

 " a nation of dyspeptics." Yes, scarce 

 a healthy man or woman can be found 

 in all our land, of American parentage. 

 Indeed, our historians say, that were it 

 not for the foreign element that is mix- 

 ing with the Yankee blood, our nation 

 would die out! Oh, glorious America! 

 Oh, boasted civilization and vain ambi- 

 tion ! How much more might we be and 

 do if we were strong-bodied, like the 

 German and Irish! And what gives them 

 the strength and vigor we lack? Not in- 

 telligence nor climate surely; for in spite 

 of our feeble bodies, the brains are equal, 

 if not superior — taking the masses — to 

 either or any nation. Then what might 

 we not expect from bodies sound and ro- 

 bust. And our climate cannot be ex- 

 celled in any land, taken collectively. 

 Our habits of life vary little with othcvr 

 nations — save in onr food — if we except 

 the high-pressure speed at which we 

 live. It is well known that the Irish, 

 as a nation, live largely on potatoes, veg- 

 etables, coarse bread and milk; the 

 Scotch ditto, with the addition of oat- 

 meal, which is indispensable at each re- 

 jiast in some form; whiio the Germans 

 use coarse, hard, stale bread, vegetables, 

 but little fr«.'sh meat, .and are much given 

 to cotit'ee and beer and a social good time 

 which greatly aids digestion. The wo- 

 men work hard, but out-of-doors and 

 loss over a hot stove than our peo- 



ple. In none of these countrie..! do you 

 find the everlasting hot bread or biscuit, ( 

 pastry, fresh pork and salted too, fried V 

 meat and potatoes, confections of all 

 kinds, as we do in our land. A German 

 baker told me that he never made a pie 

 or fancy cake in his country; had to 

 learn that here. It was the same 

 with bread-making; he could not sell the 

 old country style of bread here. Con- 

 sequently they lose their health after 

 coming and remaining long enough to 

 contract our habits of eating. Many 

 physiologists claim that we partake of 

 the nature of the food we eat; as, for 

 instance, the carnivorous animals are 

 more savage w-hen fed on meat than when 

 they eat only grains or vegetables; and 

 those Indian tribes who live by hunting, 

 eating meat as the staple article of diet, 

 as the Apache, Navaho, etc., are savage 

 and unfriendly to the whites, cunning 

 and wild, never to be trusted, while 

 those nations who lead a pastoral life, 

 cultivating fruit and grain, and raising 

 cattle for use rather than for food, like 

 the Pemos of Arizona, the Zuui, Mo- 

 (piis and I'uelilos, of New Mexico, are 

 friendly to the whites and at war only 

 with the savage tribes. 



If, then, food can eft'ect animals and 

 tribes of Indians, as we see it does, why 

 not bring it home to ourselves, and see 

 if our diet is such as to make us the 

 highest and best that is possible. While 

 the land is flooded with health tracts and 

 magazines devoted to this question, like 

 the Science of UeaUli, Herald of Health, 

 Laws of Life, Health Reformer, and plen- 

 ty more like them, surely none of us 

 should ignorantly close our eyes and 

 ears to so important a subject. 



Careless Haxdlixg of Childkex. — 

 I wish to enter a protest in the name of 

 all nervous persons and of the injured lit- 

 tle ones against the reckless way in which 

 many heedless persons express their love 

 for children, such as lifting them up by 

 their heads, tossing them up in the air, 

 carrying infants on their hands without 

 any support to their backs, and other- 

 wise endangering their limbs and senses. 

 I have now in my mind the case of a 

 man who was rendered a cripple for life 

 through his father's carelessness in lift- 

 ing him by the ankles while he was a 

 small child, he (the father) having un- 

 fortunately lost his balance and turned 

 his child's ankles in such a way that he 

 was lame ever afterwards. Two dift'ereut 

 persons have told me that they knew, 

 when too late, that by their thoughtless 

 play with them they seriously injured 

 infants entrusted to their care, one case 

 resulting in spinal disease and the other 

 in fits. And yet it is a sight daily to be 

 seen — that of people doing these things. 

 Do give the little folks tender hand- 

 ling. — Rural A'eic Yorker. 



OpKN YouE W'lNDOws.- — There is good 

 sense in this. There are some houses 

 in evei'y town whoso windows might as 

 well be sealed in with the walls for any 

 purpose they have but to let in the light. 

 They are never opened. Summer or W'in- 

 ter. In Winter it is cold; in Summer 

 the flies stray in, or if they are netted 

 the dust sifts through the nets. Now 

 you can tell a jiersou who inhabits such 

 chambers when you pass him in the 

 street, there is such a smell aboiit his 

 clothing. You long for a suifl" of co- 

 logne, or hartshorn, or burnt feathers, 

 or something of the sort to "take the 

 ta.ste out. " A house that is never aired 

 has every nook and corner filled with 

 stale odors of coidced meats, boiled veg- 

 etables, especially cabbages and onions, 

 which, as th« weeks go by, literally reek 

 in their hiding places. Who has not 

 wished sonirtimes to hang a new ser- 



