— cheese ? And who was it that skimmed, and 

 skimmed lightly, on purpose to leave a skim of 

 cream on the top of the pan of bonnyclabber ? 

 and sometimes slyly sugared o'er your buttered 

 bread ? Who let the urchin roast, without seem- 

 ing to- see it, in one comer of the kitchen fire, 

 tlie egg stolen from some straggling nest found 

 in the barn or under the bush ? Who, when glo- 

 rious Saturday— Qver most beloved of school- 

 boys — came round, sewed the sheep-skin cover 

 on his trap-ball, and gave him cotton to twist in- 

 to a fishing-line, and twine to set and apple to 

 bait his snare ? And then, above all, who was 

 it you relied on, of a doubtful " week-day " 

 morning, when clouds were lowering in the 

 north-west, to persuade the old gentleman that 

 the children had better stay at home and '■ get 

 tlieir books" today — which you, and she, too, 

 very well knew meant, virtually, to do anything 

 else but that? Oh Woman ! thy name is kind- 

 ness, and in thine heart is the temple of charity ! 

 Lives there a man with heart not alive with re- 

 membrance of your good and tender offices ? — 



" Oh bear him to some distant shore, 

 Some solitary cell, 

 Where none but savage monsters roar, 

 Where Love ne'er deigns to dw?Il !" 



But, back to our theme. 



Sooner than we had promised or expected, 

 we find ourselves under obligation to reopen 

 the Housewife's Department, for the sake of 

 supplying some items immediately connected 

 with what was given, under that head, va our 

 last, and wlucli are necessary to fill out what 

 was there commenced — for, on review of it, we 

 find it deals a little too much in the natural his- 

 tory of Poultry, and wears rather more the as- 

 pect of a literary article than one on practical 

 House wijcry. So we return to it with a view 

 to speak more in a common-sense way oi fou-ls 

 — \hc\T food, their egqs. and ihexr feathers ; and 

 as Scripture saith the first shall be last, and the 

 last first, we will begin with feathers. 



Being a little rusty in our youthful reminis- 

 cences of Poultry management, we v^-rote — if 

 we must tell the whole truth — to an old maiden 

 sister, still left to us by a kind Providence, as 

 the guide and the oracle, among her friends, in 

 all that she pretends to know. She was nurtured 

 in the strict principles of the old school, and 

 would have practiced them from Nature, " any 

 how" — direct, plain-.spoken, and religious — one 

 of those who, as the Scotch proverb savs, 

 " Wears like a horse-shoe — the langcr the brighter." 

 but she will be sure to scold us. if ever she catches 

 us, for putting her in the papers ! 



From her we received the following, in an- 

 swer to our inquiries, and which we transcribe 

 nearly to the letter : 



Feathers.— As I have experimented and 

 (701) 23 



found out a fact, that every housewife should 

 know, and as I wish to be useful the little time 

 I have to live, I should like it to be well known, 

 that feathers, smelling ever so badly, may be 

 restored to perfect freshness, by washing them 

 clean [in soap suds] and letting them lie a day 

 and a night in lime n-ater, about as strong as 

 we drink it, medicinally. They should then be 

 dried as .soon as possible in the air, or by a fire. 

 It is not known what a quantity of dirt there is 

 in very nice looking feathers. But it is not the 

 dirt that makes them smell, so much as the pen, or 

 unripe feathers. And here let us pause to ask 

 if there be in natiire any thing more beautiful — 

 if it were not so common — than a barn-door fowl 

 strutting in the splendor of his plumage, and 

 the pride of his dominion, for which he is ever 

 ready to battle with life ? Every single feather, 

 the eloquent Pailey observes, is a mechan- 

 ical wonder. " Their disposition all inclined 

 backward, the down about the stem, the over- 

 lapping of their tips, their different configura- 

 tion in different parts, not to mention the variety 

 of tlieir colors, constitute a vestment for the body 

 so beautiful and so appropriate to the life 

 which the animal is to lead, as that I think we 

 should have had no conception of any thing 

 equally perfect, if we had never seen it, or can 

 now imagine anything more so." For the curi- 

 osity and observation of those to whom this de- 

 partment is dedicated, we give some of the laws 

 which acccordiug to naturalists regulate the va- 

 rieties and changes of plumage. To us some 

 of them are new, and the observation of them 

 may well form a part of that variety of study 

 and amusement, which is to be found, for an 

 active mind in every walk of rural life. That 

 eminent patriot and farmer, the late " Col. John 

 Tay LOK of Caroline," Va., took great pleasure in 

 feeding his pigeons and his Poultry with as 

 much regularity as he took his own meals. 



Zoology, as every one knows, is the science 

 of animals. That i.s, it teaches their nature and 

 properties, their cla.ssification and their order of 

 succession upon, and their distribution over the 

 earth. In Zoology what relates to the plu- 

 mage of birds, is called Indumcninm, from 

 the Latin word, Induo, I put on — and the laws of 

 plumage are, that it is generally more than once 

 changed, be ore it attains that state which is 

 characteristic of the fully mature bird. The pe- 

 riod during which these mutations are proceed- 

 ing, varies from one to five years, and many 

 birds rear a progeny before they acquire the 

 plumage of maturitj^ When the indumentvtn 

 of the male bird dift'ers in color from that of the 

 female, the young birds of both sexes resem- 

 ble the latter in their first plumage. But when 

 both the adult male and female are of the same 

 color, the j-oung have then a plumage peculiar to 

 themselves. In some species the adult birds have 



