California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



Agbicultueal Keadino. — We ought to 

 encourage practical agricultural reading. 

 It is not claimed that these helps can, of 

 themselves, make skillful agriculturists, 

 but to a working man, readey to learn, 

 they are suggestive. To an enquiring 

 mind, at an imijressive moment, they 

 may do great good. I do not remember 

 ever to have seen the subject put in a 

 stronger light than in the following con- 

 versation, read in an agricultural paper 

 some time ago: 



A practical, hard-working, thriving 

 farmer, relating his experience and trials, 

 entered into the minute details of his 

 careful and original experiments— his 

 unwearied patience, and sometimes grow- 

 ing eloquent over his final brilliant vic- 

 tories. His knowledge could not be 

 written by men who know nothing about 

 farming. Said a quiet friend, "Well, 

 neighbor, if all this valuable informa- 

 tion, the result of j-ears of observation 

 and labor, were written out in full and 

 published, which would you have a 

 young man, in whom you felt sincere 

 interest, do — take this as he finds it from 

 your pen, or go through the same vexa- 

 tion, labor and losses that you had to 

 get it?" The question puzzled him, and 

 after a moment's silence, he yielded 

 gracefully that real practical writing 

 could do great good. — Ex. 



Wh.vt Smoking Does fok the Boys. 

 a certain doctor, struck with the large 

 number of boys under fifteen years of 

 age whom he observed smoking, was led 

 to inquire into the eft'ect the habit had 

 upon the general health. He took for 

 his purpose thirty-eight boys, aged from 

 nine to fifteen, and carefully examined 

 them. In twenty-seven of them he dis- 

 covered injurious traces of the habit. In 

 twenty-two there were various disorders 

 of the circulation and digestion, palpita- 

 tion of the heart, and a more or less 

 marked taste for strong drink. In twelve 

 there was frequent bleeding of the nose, 

 ten had disturbed sleep, twelve had 

 slight ulceration of the mucus membrane 

 of the mouth, which disappeared on 

 ceasing from the use of tobacco for some 

 days. The doctor treated them all for 

 weakness, but with little efl'ect until the 

 smoking was discontinued, when health 

 and strength were soon restored. These 

 facts are given on the authority of the 

 Brilixh Medical Jownal. 



For fakmeks, the country wants the 

 most energetic, thorough-going and wide- 

 awake boys and young men that can be 

 found. Hence, if a boy is blessed with 

 that crowning concomitant which moves 

 the world — brains — let him become a far- 

 mer. Brains constitute the great desid- 

 eratum in agricultural science at the pres- 

 ent day. Fifty years ago muscle was the 

 essential requisite. Fifty years ago a 

 farmer was expected to perform every 

 manual labor of the farm by the exercise 

 of muscular force, while at the present 

 day he needs more than muscle to enable 

 him to manage labor-saving tools with 

 skill and efiieiency. When the labors of 

 the farm were nearly all performed by the 

 laborious and fatiguing application of 

 human force, farming was irksome drud- 

 gery. But now, when teams and steam 

 power respond to the bidding of the till- 

 er of the soil, agriculture is the most 

 agreeable livelihood that one can desire. 



The isasis of ouk civilization is labor 

 fairly rewarded. By this I mean that 

 the great body of our people are com- 

 pelled to toil with their hands, and rates 

 of wages prevail under which they can 

 1 rear families. The day laborer as well 

 j as the skilled artisan can generally send 

 ' his children to the common school a few 

 years, and the elements of education 



there received cultivate self-respect in pa- 

 rents and children. These schools are 

 the nurseries in which citizens are grown. 

 The immigi'ants from European coun- 

 tries generally avail themselves of their 

 privileges. The native-born children of 

 our adopted citizens are genuine Ameri- 

 cans. Shall we encourage the immigra- 

 tion, nay, the importation of Chinese, 

 who rear no families, have not half the 

 wants of others, and can therefore work 

 for half the prevailing wages? Every 

 Chinaman who comes displaces one of 

 our own laborers. Is it a good exchange? 

 If the sole object of civilization were to 

 enable the wealthy to accumulate more 

 wealth, regardless of the comfort and 

 cultivation of the common people, I 

 should still doubt that wealth itself could 

 afiord to destroy the character of the na- 

 tion in its greed for increase. If capital 

 could avail itself of Chinese labor exclu- 

 sively at half price, the impoverishment 

 and final extinction of the great middle 

 class of our country would leave a na- 

 tion of lords and serfs, in which property 

 itself would be -a sort of adver.sity. 



Ill fares the land to haat'ning ills a prey, 

 Where wealth : C:uiuulates, aud meu decay. 



The nation can only prosper through 

 the general comfort and welfare and grad- 

 ual improvement and elevation of all. 

 Worth aud not wealth is a nation's safe- 

 ty. — Extract from Senator ,Sargent's Chi- 

 nese Speech. 



Good Advice. — Think for yourself 

 and think much more than you talk. 



Be proud of your calling; if a shoe- 

 maker, strive to make a better shoe than 

 anybody. 



Look well to the ways of your foot- 

 steps; never let one be inside a bar-room 

 or gaming saloon. 



With a clear eye and an upright heart 

 resist every wrong. 



"If thou hast a truth to utter, speak 

 and leave the rest to God." 



Touch not, tastenot that which will 

 corrupt. 



Go not to your grave one-third whis- 

 key, one-third tobacco, and the other 

 third a composition of corruption so 

 filthy that grave worms will shun the 

 place where you sleep. 



Be something — be somebody. Set 

 your mark high in the world and then 

 move towards it. 



Don't wait for somebody to lift you 

 up to the place you aspire — lift yourself. 



"Act; act in the living present, heart 

 within and God o'erhead. 



How TO Make a Nice Giel.— First get 

 your girl. (N. B. — She musn't be an 

 old girl, but a young one, nice and ten- 

 der,) Bring her up from early infancy 

 on a strict diet of hot pickles, cold bran- 

 dj'-and-water, and Ouida's novels. Send 

 her to a fashionable boarding school "to 

 be "finished off;" and, when she comes 

 home for the holidays, carefully develop 

 her latent love for dress, extravagant 

 habits and fondness for flirtations. Buy 

 her the Slang Dictionary, and let her go 

 anywhere and do everything she likes. 

 By the time she is twenty-one she will 

 be quite a nice girl. — Piinoli. 



Boys, Note This. — Don't forget to take 

 oil' your hat when you enter the house. 

 Gentlemen never keep their hats on in 

 the presence of ladies, and if you always 

 take yours off when mamma and the 

 girls are by, you will not forget yourself 

 or be mortified when a giii'st or a strang- 

 er happen to be in the parlor. Habit is 

 stronger than anything else, and you 

 will always find that the easiest way to 

 make sure of doing right on all occasions 

 is to get into the habit of doing right. 

 Good manners cannot be put on at a 

 moment's warning. 



Vulgarity.— We have a friend that 

 never speaks a "vulgar word." He is a 

 minister and a writer of ability. "I re- 

 solved when I was a child," said he, 

 "never to use a word which I could not 

 pronounce before my mother without 

 offending her." He kept his promise. 

 He is a pure-minded, noble, honored 

 man to-day. His rule and examble are 

 worthy of immitation. 



Boys readily learn a class of low, vul- 

 gar words and expressions which are 

 never heard in respectable circles. The 

 utmost care on the part of parents will 

 scarcely prevent it. Of course, we can- 

 not think of girls as being so much ex- 

 posed to this peril. We cannot imagine 

 a decent girl using words which she 

 would not give utterance to before her 

 father and mother. 



Such vulgarity is thought by some 

 boys to be "smart," "the next thing to 

 swearing," and yet not so wicked. It 

 becomes a habit; it leads to profanity; it 

 fills the mind with evil thoughts; it vul- 

 garizes aud degrades the soul; it prepares 

 the way for many of the gross and fear- 

 ful sins which now corrupt society. 



Dear young reader, set a watch upon 

 the door of your lips; keep your mouth 

 free from all impurity. 



Wom^iu 



Scientific Courtship. 



Young WoUy met Christopher down by the farm 

 With his analysis 

 And his catalysis 

 And his dialysis 

 What would he do there / 

 He came down to woo there, 

 He came pown to sue there, 

 To hill and to coo there, 

 Not to flU her soul with alarm. 



Oh I Science, 'tis thus that fair made you win. 

 With partheuogensis 

 And alterogenesis 

 And heterogensis 

 And other such things: 

 For Love he has wings 

 And with him he brings 

 Full many such things 

 In the ears of fair maidens to din. 



Young Christopher came with his linest bro- 

 chures 



On trilobstea 

 And troglodytes 

 And such delights, 

 And he said, My dear, these are yours. 



Yes. they're yours. 

 Love may come and love may go, 

 Science endures. 



The heart Is a stubborn thing, 



Ane conical in shape; 

 A remnant which with us we bring 



From our ancestral ape. 

 It drives the blood to Molly's cheeks. 

 She opens her ruby lips and speaks: 



Her mitral valve plays 



In the wildest of ways. 



Her columua arena 



Gives her an idea 



By the way that it acts; 



And accepting the facts, 

 She then and there agrees to become 

 The partner of his scientific home, 



—(Journal of Applied Chemistry, 



"As Sixteen to Twenty-six." 



THANK you, Dr. Draper, for fur- 

 nishing me a text. Dr. John Wm. 

 L Draper says, "The strength of the 

 ir( female is to that of the male as 16 to 

 '" 20." 



About three-fifths, then, is the frac- 

 tion. Who would guess it? 



Last summer I wandered out to a 

 Ligonier farm-house for a brief visit. 

 Remaining over night, 1 wixs aroused in 

 the morning at a dreadful hour — four 

 o'clock, I think— by the busy rattle, 

 clatter and hum of a new day dawning 

 in the kitchen. 



I thought unutterable things, and went 

 to sleep. At seven I was awakened "for 

 idl day" by the rising bell. In due time 



I found myself sitting at table. In a few , 

 minutes in sauntered the nominal head 

 of the house, a great, stalwart man, the 

 picture of health. "Wife, have you any 

 breakfast for me?" he asked in a good- 

 natured way, so very good-natured that 

 I instantly surmised that he had already 

 been well fed, and only came now for a 

 cup of coffee and a chat. 



"Oh, yes, dear," the little wife said; 

 and she hurried to set a chair for him, 

 and to put cup, plate, etc., on the table. 



"Why, how's this?" I asked; "I had 

 thought the family day commenced a 

 little after midnight!' ' 



"Yes," said the wife, "he has had 

 one breakfast; he can't work before 

 breakfast." 



"No, I can't work before breakfast no. 

 how! Have to have my breakfast before 

 I can do anything," the husband assert- 

 ed, with great apparent self-respect for 

 that very circumstance. 



I said, with a somewhat nettled feel- 

 ing, which, of course, I could not exhib- 

 it, "And can j/ou work before breakfast, 

 Mrs. Clark?" 



"Oh, my! I have to be up and over 

 the stove, cooking meat and potatoes by 

 four, every morning." 



The little woman hadagreat "stirrin" 

 baby — as they call them out here — and 

 to my certain knowledge he had sung 

 several "Songs in the Night" just past; 

 I knew the mother's sleep had been frag- 

 mentary, at best; I know she was never 

 thoroughly rested from one day to an- 

 other; but fhe could, all the Summer 

 long, get up before the light and "work 

 before breakfast" to prepare a hearty 

 meal for that weaker vessel who "couldn't 

 work before breakfast. " Neither hus- 

 band nor wife seemed to think the eter- 

 nal fitness of things was disturbed in the 

 least by this little arrangement. 



Item, Since then I have been trying 

 to mature a plan by which everj'body 

 can have rolls aud coffee before rising. 

 Can't make it out except by au alcohol 

 boiler, and probably nine out of ten will 

 blow themselves up with that, to say 

 nothing of setting the bed-clothes on fire. 



Sudden second thought — marvelous it 

 didn't occur before! — servant, or wife, 

 whichever you happen to have, can get 

 along somehow without the coffee, and 

 take her "roll" out of bed — to get yours 

 ready! (Patent.) 



Because, "the strength of the woman, ' ' 

 etc. 



But there be men and men. 



Once I went to visit a former school- 

 mate who had been many years married 

 to a good man, who owed his superior 

 wit, moral worth, right ideas to his mo- 

 ther. He was an Amherst graduate, a 

 cultured gentleman, a Congregational 

 minister, the preceptor of an acadamy, 

 and, last and least, but not little, an ex- 

 ceedingly handsome man. Just think of 

 it, he was not spoiled a particle! They 

 lived in their own commodious house, 

 this childless couple, keeping a servant, 

 when a good one was to be had; going 

 without at other times. 



I happened to be there at one of the 

 other times — and was glad of it — for it 

 developed this astounding fact that 

 George really believed he was stronger 

 than Lizzie; practically believed it to the 

 extent of getting up and making the fire, 

 and assisting about breakfast with all the 

 vigor aud energy expected from a hired 

 girl at a dollar and fifty cents a week ! 



It was jileasant to see and to remember 

 how this lively, cheerful, efficient and 

 versatile professor "snapped around," 

 setting the table, going down cellar for < 

 bread, running out with white pitcher to , 

 the milkman's cart, aud after meals— j 

 that's the tug of war— actually drying the \ 

 dishes, in a handy "20" manner, to the . 



