262 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



be useful, that in the last number we engaged 

 to devote a few pages m this one to the consid- 

 eration of some of the manifold cares and labors 

 Shat belong to the domestic and social position 

 of tlie housewife. 



Everybody knows that all writers and men 

 of good sense are agreed that, in all countries, 

 nothing is a surer index of the state of civiliza- 

 tion and social refinement than the more or less 

 respect which is paid to females generally, and 

 tlie estimate in which the public holds the part 

 which is assigned to woman in the round of so- 

 cial life and duties. As information is diffused — 

 as the arts flourish, and civilization advances — 

 we see women everywhere withdrawn from 

 field labor : their burdens are lightened ; they 

 cease to be hewers of wood and drawers of wa- 

 ter ; and respect, tenderness and kind treatment 

 succeed to the hardships and contumely which 

 are characteristic of savage Ufe. This meliora- 

 tion of woman's lot is, in fact, the fairest fruit of 

 glorious knowledge — the very consummation of 

 humanity ! For ourselves, we confess to an in- 

 stinctive respect for a petticoat, even when 

 hanging out to dry ! but Heaven preser\-e us, at 

 the same time, from canying this march of re- 

 finement, in Republican America, to that degree 

 of aristocratic Utopian sentimentality, under 

 ■which domestic happiness and the honor and 

 prosperity of the husband shall be unconnected 

 with and independent of the cares and attention 

 •of the wife and the mother ! No ! no ! Let it 

 never ccme to pass that it shall cease in our land 

 to be, as a general thing, one of the conditions 

 of domestic felicity and success, that, according 

 to our venerable and considerate author afore- 

 said — 

 " As huswives keep home, and be stirrers about, 



So speedeth their winnings the whole year about." 



How, in fact, in any natural and honorable state 

 of things, should it be that the faithful discharge 

 of her duties in either of these characters can 

 be dispensed with ! What, but for the mother, 

 would be the lot of helpless mfancy 1 At the 

 very moment that experience begins to clear up 

 the confusion of impressions derived through 

 organs not yet perfectly developed, and the er- 

 rors of one sense are rectified by the observa- 

 tions of another, education may be said to have 

 already commenced, and, simultaneously, Uie 

 sacred duties of the watchful mother ! 



" Children, like tender osiers, take the bow, 

 And, as they first are fashioned, so they gi-ow. 



With her very milk the child may be said to im- 

 bibe his sentiments and the elements of his char- 

 acter ; hence the temper and principles even of 

 the nurse are more important than is usually 

 imagined. " In fact," says Plutarch, " if the 

 Spartan does not crj' even at the breast — if he 

 be insensible to fear, and already patient under 

 aufferiuars — he owes it to his nurse. On this 



homely point, let us recur again to our old coun- 

 sellor, "Thomas Tusser, Gentleman," of the 

 age of black letter : 



" Good huswives take pain, and do count it good luck. 

 To make their own breast their own child to give 



suck. 

 Though wrauling and rocking, be noisome so near, 

 Yet lost by ill nursing, is worser to hear. 

 But one thing I warn thee, let huswife be nurse. 

 Lest husband do find thee, too frank with his purse. 

 Teach child to ask blessing, serve God, and to church, 

 Then bless as a mother, else bless him with birch. 

 Thou huswife thus doing, what further shall need? 

 But all men to call thee good mother indeed." 



But it was not ■within the scope of our prom- 

 ise or design to descant here on the higher and 

 holier oiBces of the housewife in her capacity 

 as a mother, in shaping and tempering the char- 

 acter of her offspring ; else might we be at no 

 loss for exemplifications, as well from ancient 

 as from modern times, to prove how deeply the 

 maternal influence has stamped itself on the 

 lives of the most illustrious characters. We 

 might speak of Penelope and Telemachus, 

 among the Greeks — of Cornelia, the Roman 

 Mother of the Gracchi ; and, in more modem 

 times, we might refer to Washington and Na- 

 poleon, among waiTiors and statesmen — to Hen- 

 ry IV. — to Francis I. of France — to Alfred the 

 Great — to Pope, Gray, Cowper, Sir William 

 Jones, Mr. Madison, and Henry Clay. But our 

 purpose, at present, is rather to dwell on the 

 more homely duties of the housewife, as condu- 

 cive to domestic comfort, and indispensable to 

 succesxful husbandry. 



To ti'eat of it in either one of its several 

 branches, good books have been written, and 

 yet better books might be, as for example, we 

 have had books without number on Cookery, on 

 Poultrj-, on Gardening ; and lately, Mr. Lou- 

 don's book on Farming for Ladies. And why 

 not ? How often does it happen in our coun- 

 try, that wives are left in possession of large 

 landed estates, with a house full of helpless chil- 

 dren ; and too often the estate encumbered with 

 heavy debts, from which nothing but energy 

 and good management can extricate it. What 

 an awful responsibility for a feeble, uneducated 

 woman, born to fortune, and reared in the lap 

 of indulgence — educated to believe it unbecom- 

 ing to learn anything but the arts and mj-steries 

 of the toilet ! The common fate of ^vomcu so 

 reared and educated, is but too plain. In a few 

 years nothing is left to them but abject ruin, or 

 the dread of it prevails with her to throw her- 

 self under the conjugal wing of some loafer, of 

 whom there are too many, watching for such 

 prey, and by whom the \^•ife is too often neglect- 

 ed, and children oppressed and defrauded. 

 Then it is that knowledge, and the resolution 

 and character which knowledge only can give, 

 enables her to show the glorious attributes that 

 belong to a cultivated woman, roused by neces- 



