California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



in a friendly way every few days, biit 

 after exerting his utmost skill iu drugs 

 says nothing more can be done, and 

 ieii-ves her to die! Poor woman! and 

 wise doctor! My hostess has been to 

 ofler any aid, iiud says there is hope 

 while there is life, and cooled hor head 

 and gave her a rubbing bath, which was 

 followed by a sleep of an hour. How I 

 do hope that she may recover under my 

 friend's advice and treatment! 



HAVE A HOME. 



BY ISAAC KINLEY. 



Dependence debases. Few minds are 

 able to resist its depressing influence. 

 The tendency of subordination to 

 the will of another is to destroy 

 the sense of self-respect. Personal 

 independence is a tree of rare growth, 

 and even under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances for its development, is by no 

 means too deeply rooted. Where one 

 stands straight up and looks the world 

 honestly in the face, a thousand 



"Bend the supple hinges of the knee 

 That thrift maj folluw fawning." 



To have no home — to live by coui'tesy, 

 with the constant feeling that pleasing, 

 not one's own conscience, but the will, 

 and often thecorruit will, of another, 

 is the condition by which one's place is 

 held, not only destroys manliness, but 

 strongly tends to sap the foundation of 

 every other virtue. 



Personal independence, if not in itself 

 a virtue of the highest order, is a con- 

 dition without which other virtues can- 

 not flourish. The meanest thing that 

 crawls is the slave of caste who dares only 

 to think and speak as he is permitted. I 

 would rather burrow in the caves of the 

 earth than subordinate my convictions of 

 duty to those whom accident has placed 

 iu superior physical circumstances. Ac- 

 countable to God, and to Him only, the 

 ■will of no man should be thrust between 

 ourselves and duty. If this manliness 

 of character can be asserted only at a 

 sacrifice, the cost should teach us to 

 prize it the more highly. 



He who holds the title deeds to the 

 land you cultivate, or for the house that 

 shelters you, has no more rightful au- 

 thority over your conscience than you 

 have over his — has no rights, moral, 

 social or political, which you do not 

 possess. 'When he attempts to silence 

 your voice or control your vote by other 

 means than an apjieal to your reason, 

 treat him as an object beneath you — 

 spurn him from your presence. 



Our faculties are God-given, and it is 

 better to go to bed with a hungry belly 

 than with a dwarfed soul. Freedom of 

 action is at once a duty and a privilege, 

 and we have no right, if we would, to 

 surrender it. 



But dependence is not a necessity. 

 ■With a home of only a few acres, one 

 may be free; and with health and frugal- 

 ity an industrious family may, within a 

 few years, buy themselves such a home. 

 Not many acres, indeed, and a costly 

 mansion, but yet a few acres and a hum- 

 ble cottage; and this their industry and 

 taste may soon make a "sweet home." 



To the family without a home, I 

 would say, Defer not the day of your 

 dcliverauce. The children are growing 

 uj) without the endearments of home. 

 They are forming habits in a state of de- 

 pendence. You arc depriving yourselves 

 of the benefits of "a local habitation and 

 a name." 



If you are poor, be not ashamed of 

 your poverty. Do not for a moment 

 feel that you are of any the less conse- 

 quence on this account, or that you are 

 accountable to other than God for your 



actions. But save your earnings, cur- 

 tail your expenses, and buy yourself a 

 home, or the first spot of ground 

 which iswithin your ability to purchase. 



Then you may V)o free, and enjoy the 

 rich moral blessings which a sense of 

 personal independence brings. Plant 

 the fruit-bearing tree and the vine; teach 

 the flowers to cluster around your cot- 

 tage, and make your few acres smile as a 

 garden. Mingle your voices in songs 

 and in hymns of praise to God. Long 

 in the hearts of the children grown to 

 manhood and womanhood be repeated 

 the pleasant memories, and the old 

 homestead be recurred to as "a thing of 

 beauty, and a joy forever." 



And the library — I conjure you not to 

 forget the library. If not familiar with 

 books, go to some reliable friend who is. 

 The honest man whose home is the 

 dwelling of industry, intelligence and 

 virtue may look down on him whose 

 acres are counted by the thousands. 



GOVERNING CHILDREN. 



BY BUSY BEE. 



How hard it is to govern children — 

 and, no doubt, much harder for some 

 than others. It requires a great deal of 

 thought and discii^line upon my pflrt to 

 enable me to govern my children proper- 

 ly, and with all, I dare say, I often com- 

 mit grievous blunders in regard to their 

 management. 



I think we should try to make our 

 children love us. Of course, they natu- 

 rally do; yet there are many little ways 

 of endearing ourselves to them — of mak- 

 ing their little lives happy, and the re- 

 membrance of their childhood a well- 

 spring of joy all through life. Not, of 

 course, by undue indulgence. That is, 

 perhaps, as bad as undue severity. Nor 

 by simply providing for their physical 

 wants. This, truly, is much, but not all. 

 The little things need more. Thej' have 

 their childish sorrows, which are as poig- 

 nant to them as a grief to us. A loving 

 word and caress should always be ready 

 to soothe their little troubles and cure 

 their little hurts. After they grow older 

 and le.ave their home to make their way 

 in the world, if the thought of home is 

 one of fond remembrance, and the love 

 of parents deep and true, it must be im- 

 possible for them to go far astray. 



Every evening, in order to get the 

 children to go to bed in a hapi^y, con- 

 tented frame of mind — and, in fact, to 

 get them to go willingly when their bed- 

 time comes — I devote a half hour or so 

 to reading to them, which they enjoy 

 very much, looking forward during the 

 day to the evening's reading. It is very 

 gratifying to give the good-night caress 

 amid hajipy, contented feelings. We 

 read and talk al)Out the little stories and 

 poems, and really I think I enjoy it as 

 much as they. The AaracuLTURisT fur- 

 nishes us many an evening's entertain- 

 ment. 



take care of itself. If a man looks over 

 the fence, be suspicious of him. Per- 

 haps he contemplates stealing, one of 

 these dark nights. There is no knowing 

 what queer fancies may have got into his 

 head. If you find symptoms of anyone 

 passing out of the paths of duty, be par- 

 ticular to tell every one else what you 

 see. Circulate such tidings, though it 

 may not benefit yourself or anyone par- 

 ticularly. Do keep something a-going. 

 Silence is a dreadful thing. It is said 

 "there was silence in heaven for the 

 space of half an hour." Don't let such 

 a thing occur on earth. It would be too 

 much for this mundane sphere. 



If you wish to cultivate a gossiping, 

 meddling, censorious spirit in your chil- 

 dren, be sure when they come home 

 home from church, from a visit, or any 

 other place where you' do not accompany 

 them, to ply them with questions con- 

 cerning what everybody wore, and how 

 everybody looked, and what everybody 

 said or did; and if you find out anything 

 that you can censure, always do it in 

 their hearing. Yoxi may rest assured, if 

 ycii pursue a course of this kind, your 

 dear children will not return to you un- 

 laden with intelligence. And rather than 

 what they communicate to you should 

 be uninteresting, they will, by degrees, 

 learn to embellish in such a manner as 

 shall not fail to call forth remarks and 

 expressions of wonder from you. You 

 will, by this course, render the spirit of 

 curiosity, which is so early visible in 

 children, and which, if rightly directed, 

 may be an instrument of enriching and 

 enlarging their minds, a vehicle of mis- 

 chief which shall serve to narrow and 

 vitiate them. 



HOW TO MAKE MISCHIEF. 



BY MRS. L. W. 



Keep your eye on your neighbors. 

 Watch like a spider in its den for an op- 

 portunity to pounce upon them. Do not 

 let them stir without watching, or they 

 may do something wrong. To bo sure, 

 yen may have never known them to do 

 anything bad, but it maybe on your own 

 account they have not. Perhaps, it it 

 had not been for your kind care, they 

 would have disgraced themselves long 

 ago. Therefore, do not relax any eflort 

 to keep them where they ought to be. 

 Never mind your own business; that can 



Home Power. — It is a common saying 

 that "manners make the man;" and 

 there is a second, that "mind makes the 

 man;" but truer than eitheir is a third, 

 that "home makes the man" — for the 

 home trainiag includes not only manner 

 and mind, but character. It is mainly 

 in the home that the heart is opened, the 

 habits are formed, the intellect is awak- 

 ened, and character moulded for good or 

 for evil. 



For that source, be it pure or impure, 

 issue the principles and maxims that 

 govern society. Law itself is but the re- 

 flex of the homes. The tiniest bits of 

 opinion sown in the minds of children 

 in private life afterwards issue forth to 

 the world and become its public opinion, 

 for nations are gathered out of nurseries, 

 and they who hold the leatling strings of 

 children may even exercise a greater 

 I^ower than those who yield the reins of 

 government. 



Growing Old. — How strange our ideas 

 of growing old change as we get on in 

 life! To the girl iu her teens the riper 

 maiden of tweuty-iive seems quite aged. 

 Twenty-two thinks thirty-five an "old 

 thing." Thirty-five dreads forty, but 

 congratulates herself that there may still 

 remain some ground to be possessed in 

 the fifteen years before the half century 

 shall be attained. 



But fifty does not by any means give 

 up the battle of life. It feels middle- 

 aged and vigorous, and thinks old age is 

 a long way in the future. Sixty remem- 

 •bers those who have done great things at 

 three score, and one doubts if Parr, 

 when he was married at one hundred, 

 had at all begun to feel himself an old 

 man. It is the desire of life in us which 

 makes us live so long. 



One of the most attractive and valua- 

 ble pulilications which reach our tidjle is 

 the CAi.ii?oRNiA Aqricui.turist, published 

 monthly at San Jose, at $1 50 per an- 

 num. —Ca.s/roriWe Argu^. 



(£mt$im\iU\m. 



DEEP 



<^\^, 



VS. SHALLOW CULTURE 

 OF THE SOIL. 



BY MECHANIC. 



K. Editor: In your April number 

 I noticed a letter from Castroville 

 that is quite interesting, yet I re- 

 spectfully difi'er with the writer in 

 5f(i'^ some of his views, but most 

 heartily endorse his notions of rotation 

 of crops, thorough pulverization of the 

 soil, and, as a general rule, early seed- 

 ing, especially in dry seasons. However, 

 I would pulverize the soil very deep, and 

 if it was not fertile, raise crops that 

 would warrant manure to fertilize it. In 

 shallow soils, with poor subsoils, the 

 deepening should be gradual, and 

 proceed only as fast as you are able to 

 fertilize it. Some kind of well-fed stock 

 — either hogs or cattle- -to convert your 

 corn, barley, peas and straw into man- 

 ure, is essential to improve poor land. 

 Lime added occasionally, as the manure 

 enables the soil to bear it, will work as- 

 tonishing results. 



The manure, in your dry climate, 

 should be compost, and thoroughly rot- 

 ted; but manure from j^oor stock is next 

 to worthless, and will not pay for haul- 

 ing out, unless it is thoroughly decom- 

 posed, as it is liable (iu a coarse state) to 

 make the crop suffer with drouth. 



"Subscriber" says he is convinced that 

 thorough surface cultivation is best. So 

 am I. But the deeper the Better, if 

 thoroughly and correctly done. It is 

 better to cultivate shallow than to turn 

 it up deep and late, and then seed upon 

 the coarse clods. His unsatisfactory ex- 

 periment of 1S70-1 might have been of 

 the latter class. Had the deep-plowed 

 soil he mentions been thoroughly pul- 

 verized by summer-fallowing, with two 

 or three plowings and harrowings, and 

 seeded early, the result would probably 

 have been reversed. 



The most advanced farmers of England 

 plow deep, and trench plow, and follow 

 the second plow with the subsoil, which 

 gives them the most satisfactory results. 

 Of late years, some have used a heavy 

 stationary steam engine, with wire ropes 

 and pulleys arranged to draw the plows 

 across the field. This mode enables 

 them to till the ground still deeper than 

 before, with better results. 



"Subscriber" speaks of the success of 

 farmers in Europe without very deep 

 plowing, yet admits, in the same sen- 

 tence, that it has paid them to deepen 

 their shallow soil artificially, manure it, 

 etc. ; but he must also admit that such 

 farmers are not up to the high standard 

 of the most advanced, scientific and prac- 

 tical farming practiced iu England. He 

 thinks me in error about my ll-inch 

 plowing — or the amount of the crop, I 

 know not which— but I can assure him 

 there is no error. The f>ld farm was 

 thought to be worn out, but it really was 

 only packed so tight for ten (u- twelve 

 inches deep that the water and corn roots 

 could not enter it, and in dry weather it 

 cracked as deep, or decjier, than your 

 adobe soils. My friends thought me 

 foolish when I obtained the place, and 

 were still more worried when I kept a 

 man. with a good ti'am, at work nearly 

 all summer preparing sixteen acres for 

 corn the next season: yet they changed 

 their minds when Ihcy saw the biggest 

 crop of corn, by nearly 31) bushels, that 

 the Boise Brule bottom had ever pru- 

 dueed. The driver's work, board and 

 horse feed, to summer-fallow the land, 

 cost me a trifle over $1) JJer acre. The 



