NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



205 



ings by moonlight. Then, there are the India 

 shawls which fall in folds so gracefully from the 

 drooping shoulders of our belles, adorned with 

 that everlasting, unchanging palm-leaf, as we are 

 informed it is, which, to our agricultural eye, 

 suggests the idea of an ill-grown, crook-necked 

 squash ! 



Manifestly, there is a demand for taste and tal- 

 ent and labor, refined taste, high talent and re- 

 spectable and well compensated labor, in these de- 

 partments. Let us have gracefulness and good taste 

 manifest in all our surroundings. "Beauty is an 

 emblem of inward good," and however philoso- 

 phers may refine upon the principles of its opera- 

 tion to give us pleasure, we believe with the poet, 

 that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and that 

 he is a benefactor of his race, who contributes to 

 the general stock of the beautiful, whether it be 

 color or form or landscape — picture, statue, tree, 

 or flower or lawn. 



Institutions of this kind must tend in every way 

 to promote correct taste, and true refinement, not 

 only among the pupils who are thus rendered fa- 

 miliar with beautiful forms and combinations of 

 color, not only among the friends whom they dai- 

 ly meet in social life, but as we have already sug- 

 gested, throughout the whole community, where 

 the products of their labor shall be mingled with 

 the affairs of life. 



Again, we like the plan for its truly republican 

 tendency. In the school, as in our common 

 schools for children, there is no distinction of rank. 

 Nature's aristocracy of genius and true nobility 

 of soul will have their first place there, as every- 

 where. The effect of an intercourse between fe- 

 males of all classes of society, associated for a 

 common object on equal terms, is to awaken a 

 sympathy powerful every way for good. 



Such an institution tends to give dignity to labor, 

 to make useful labor respectable. It has always 

 been respectable among young ladies to perform 

 useless labor, to spend months of the few precious 

 years given them on earth, in worsted work and 

 embroidered kerchief 's , but to aid the over-burdened 

 mother in keeping the family wardrobe in order 

 has been regarded as rather a low business. To 

 practice music or drawing as a recreation, is re- 

 garded as evidence of being accomplished ; but to 

 teach those accomplishments for compensation, is 

 too often felt to be more degrading than depen- 

 dence and an aimless life. To correct these false 

 impressions, to incite each to do her part in the 

 business of life, to make it honorable to help "to 

 bear one another's burdens," are among the legit- 

 imate results of such an institution. 



The school is under the direction of an executive 

 committee, composed of an equal number of la- 

 dies and gentlemen. Miss E. D. Littlehale is 

 Secretary, and conducts the correspondence. She 

 is a lady whose light is steadily shining, and can- 



not long be hid. "We should be glad, did we feel 

 at liberty, to repeat some things that Fame has 

 told us of her labors of love, and of her devoted 

 rad self-sacrificing spirit. 



We will only add, that we trust the generous 

 philanthropy which has prompted this enterprise, 

 will be enabled to sustain it, and perfect it into a 

 permanent system. 



Trials and embarrassments of all kinds are a 

 part of the discipline of all who lead in any good 

 work. The ridicule of the ignorant, the cautious- 

 ness of conservatism, the hyper-sensibility which 

 fears lest womanhood should transcend its proprie- 

 ties, and the carelessness and unsympathizing spirit 

 of merely worldly men, are among the outward im- 

 pediments of all such schemes. Differences of 

 opinion, and want of knowledge as to the details 

 of management among its directors and friends, 

 the petty jealousies and animosities incident to 

 poor human nature everywhere, will stand at 

 times like lions in the way, to turn brave hearts 

 from the paths of noble action. 



From what we know of those who have charge 

 of this school, we have confidence that they will 

 be able to endure unto the end, and that they 

 will have in addition to the consciousness that 

 they are earnestly doing the ■will of their Master, 

 the reward of success. 



CURRANTS AND GOOSEBERRIES. 



It is to be presumed that not one in a hundred 

 understands the simple process of cultivating either 

 currants or gooseberries, although it has been de- 

 tailed in all the horticultural books with which the 

 world abounds. Thousands of persons, with ev- 

 ery appliance for success, are still content to live 

 without a plentiful supply of these delicious, 

 healthy, and cheap luxuries, merely because they 

 have not thought of the matter. They have a 

 few stinted bushes set in the grass, with three- 

 fourths of the stocks dead, and then wonder why 

 they do not bear in abundance. 



There is not a more beautiful shrub growing 

 than the currant, properly propagated ; and the 

 same may be said of the gooseberry. Cultivators 

 who pay any attention to the subject, never allow 

 the root to make but one stock, or, as the English 

 say, "make them stand on one leg" — thus form- 

 ing a beautiful miniature tree. 



To do this you must take sprouts of last year's 

 growth, and cut out all the eyes, or buds, in the 

 wood, leaving only two or three at the top ; then 

 push them about half the length of the cutting 

 into mellow ground, where they will root, and 

 run up a single stock, forming a beautiful symmet- 

 rical head. If you wish it higher, cut the eyes 

 out again the second year. I have one six feet 

 high. This places your fruit out of the way of 

 hens, and prevents the gooseberry from mildewing, 

 which often happens when the fruit lies on or near 

 the ground, and is shaded by a superabundance of 

 leaves and sprouts. It changes an unsightly bush, 

 which cumbers and disfigures your garden, into 

 an ornamental dwarf tree. The fruit is larger, 

 and ripens better, and will last on the bushes, by 

 growing in perfection, until late in the fall. 



