146 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Domestic Department. 



Country Girls. — Mrs. Swisshelm,of the Pitts- 

 burg Visitor, has written some very fine things. We 

 extract the following from her Letters to Cotmtrij 

 GirU : — 



" Well, girls, I know that, lot others do as they 

 will, yon have to work ; for if you do not, you would 

 not be worthy the name of country girls. The drawl- 

 ing concerns, who lounge round reading novels, lisp- 

 ing about the fashions and gentility, thumping some 

 poor hired piano until it groans again, and putting on 

 airs to catch husbands, while their mothers are toil- 

 ing and boiling in the kitchen, are not often met in 

 the country. This class of girls are generally con- 

 iincd to cities ; and you would be surprised to know 

 how many of them are here. There are hundreds 

 of girls in every large citj- who parade the streets in 

 feathers, flowers, silks, and laces, whose hands arc 

 soft and white as uselessness can make them, whose 

 mothers keep boarders to get a Living for their idle 

 daughters. These mothers will cook, sweep, wait on 

 table, carry loads of marketing, do the most menial 

 drudgery, toil late and early, with very little more 

 clothing than would be allowed to a southern slave, 

 •while their hopeful daughters spend their mornings 

 lounging in bed, reading some silly book, taking les- 

 sons in music and French, fixing finery, and the like. 

 The evenings arc devoted to dressing, displaying 

 their charms and accomplishments to the best advan- 

 tage, for the wonderment and admiration of knights 

 of the yardstick, and young aspirants for profes- 

 sional honors — doctors without patients, lawyers 

 without clients — who are as braudess and soulless 

 as themselves. After a while, the piano-pounding 

 simpleton captivates a tape-measuring, law- expound- 

 ing, or pill-making simpleton. The two ninnies 

 spend every cent that can be raised by hook or by 

 crook — get all that can be got on credit, in broad- 

 cloth, satin, flowers, lace, carriage, attendance, &c., 

 hang their empty pockets on somebody's chair, lay 

 their empty heads on somebody's pillow, and com- 

 mence their empty life with no other prospect than 

 living at somebody's expense — with no other purpose 

 than living genteelly, and spiting their neighbors. 

 This is a synopsis of the lives of thousands of street 

 and ball-room belles, perhaps some of whose shining 

 costumes you have envied from a passing glance. 

 Thousands of women in cities dress elegantly on the 

 streets, who have not a sulRciency of wholesome 

 food, a comfortable bed, or fire enough to warm their 

 rooms." 



To PRESERVE Milk. — If milk be introduced into 

 bottles, then well corked and put into cold water, 

 and gradually raised to the boiling jioint, and after 

 being allowed to cool, be taken out and put away in 

 a cool place, the milk may be kept perfectly sweet 

 for half a year ; or it may be evajtoratcd to dryness, 

 bj' a gentle heat and under constant stirring. A dry 

 mass will thus bo obtained, which, when dissolved in 

 hot water, is said to possess all the qualities of the 

 best nulk. 



t)outl)*s Department. 



Nutritious Bue.vd. — Boil half a pound of rice in 

 three pints of water, till the whole becomes thick 

 and pulpy. With this and yeast, and six pounds of 

 flour, make your dough. In this way, it is said as 

 much bread will be made, as if eight pounds of flour, 

 without the rice, had been used. — Am. Agriculturist. 



Science strengthens and enlarges the mind. 



Few of the youth in the country, we fear, appre- 

 ciate or improve the advantages they enjoy — jjartic- 

 ularly those afforded by the long winter evenings. 

 The youth in our cities, at most trades, have to labor 

 as long, and longer, in the winter than at any other 

 season. The evenings are not their own, but their 

 employers'. In the country the winter is a season of 

 leisure. The farmer's son and daughter emploj' the 

 evenings as best suit their inclination. What an 

 opportunity this affords for mental improvement ! — a 

 rare chance to gain that knowledge which shall 

 prepare them for respectability and usefulness in the 

 world. A young man, by the assistance of such 

 books as all can prociu-c, in three or four winters can 

 lay up a stock of knowledge that shall prepare him 

 to act well his part as a farmer and citizen — a 

 knowledge that will give him an influence over 

 less intelligent neighbors, and if rightly used, will 

 advance the best interest of the country, and the 

 good of all. 



It is for every young man and ever)' young woman 

 to decide Avhethcr this golden opportunity shall be 

 improved — these evenings well spent ; or whether 

 they shall be wasted, or worse than Avasted, in idle- 

 ness and frivolity. We would not detract from your 

 pleasures — far from it ; the pleasures of knowledge 

 surpass any pleasure afforded by the too common 

 amusement of the young. The fields of science 

 afford solid pleasure — they furnish new sources of 

 delight at every onward movement — they are strewn 

 with flowers at every step. The pleasure of science 

 is, perhaps, the only earthly exception to the words 

 of the poet, that, 



" Each pleasure has its poison, too." 



In the pages of the Farmer we can only hope to 

 arrest the attention of the youth, and then bid them 

 go on, furnishing them facilities, as far as possible, to 

 help them search for knowledge — ever holding up 

 the encouragement that industry and perseverance in a 

 rifrht cause insure success. — Genesee Farmer. 



<5calt!) Department. 



Causes of Diseases of Children. — It appears 

 from the annual registers of the dead, that about one 

 half the children born, die under twelve years of 

 age. To many, indeed, this may appear a natural 

 evil ; but on due examination, it will be found to be 

 one of our creating. Were the deaths of infants a 

 natural evil, other animals would be as liable to die 

 young as man ; but this, we find, is by no means the 

 case. 



It may seem strange that man, notwithstanding 

 his superior reason, should fall so far short of other 

 animals in the management of his young. But our 

 surprise will soon cease, if we consider that brutes, 

 guided by instinct, never err in this respect ; while 

 man, trusting solely to art, is seldom right. Were a 

 catalogue of those children who perish annually by 

 art alone, exhibited to public view, it would astonish 

 most peojile. 



If parents are above taking care of their children, 

 others must bo employed for that pur()ose. These 

 will always endeavor to recommend themselves by 

 the appearance of extraordinary skill and address. 

 By this means, such a number of unnecessary and 

 destructive articles have been introduced irito the 

 diet, clothing, &c., of infants, that it is no wonder so 

 many of them perish. 



