406 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Sept. 



the godliness of any man or woman who was not 

 cleanly. Filth is a violation of the rights of sever- 

 al of the senses. We see it ; we feel it ; sometimes 

 we may be cheated into tasting it ; and we smell it 

 terribly. In all ways, and under all conditions, it 

 is vile and bad, ill-mannered and immoral. 



First of all, then, and above all, and as the prime 

 condition of all excellence of character and beauty 

 of Hfe, O, be thoroughly and perfectly clean ! The 

 human organism is so constituted that no person 

 can be absolutely clean without washing the wliole 

 surface of the body every day. MiUions of pores 

 are constantly exuding waste matter from the body. 

 This matter, if allowed to remain, is filth; in any 

 considerable quantity it is poison. Ketuined in the 

 system, it is matter of disease, and is the eflicient 

 cause of typhus and similar (Useases. 



It is not enough to change the under garments 

 often. Much is carried away, but much also ad- 

 heres. In certain parts of the body, as under the 

 arms and on the feet, it collects ra])idly, and in a 

 few hours has an offensive odor. 



Cleanly persons have acute senses. I know la- 

 dies who can tell whether a person bathes daily the 

 moment he comes into the room. Many an ex- 

 2)ensively dressed man scents a parlor as soon as he 

 enters it, with the disgusting odor of liis unwashed 

 feet and gathered perspiration. We smell it every- 

 where — at theatres and balls, in steamboat cabins 

 and omnibuses ; everywhere we meet this mortify- 

 ing and disgusting fact of personal uncleanliness. 



It is mixed with tobacco, it is mingled with per- 

 fumes ; but these do not help it. The execrable 

 filth is there, ])oisoning the atmosphere. The wise 

 Swedenborg tells us that the wicked love the scent 

 of their own hells. People, whose senses are blun- 

 ted by custom, are unconscious of their personal 

 conditions, but they are always liable to meet those 

 to whom their kick of the first decency of life is a 

 violent breach of good manners. 



Ladies, it is a pity that one should be obliged to 

 A^-rite and print so imi)olite a thing, but it is true 

 that you are not always careful enough of the i)urity 

 of vour clothing. You may be nice in jour persons 

 — for the honor of all womanhood I hope so — but 

 I have met women of beauty and accomplishment 

 who dressed with great elegance, but when they 

 came near a fire in a cold day, there rose from them 

 odors that were not wal'ted from "Araby the blest." 



The Enghsh papers call their " lower orders" the 

 " great unwashed." The circulation of works on 

 water-cure has done much for the cause of cleanli- 

 ness in this country; but it is to be feared that 

 there are here, as well as in Europe, vast numliers 

 who merit this designation. — Illustrated Manners 

 Book. ^ 



Fi)r the New England Farmer. 



MOWING MACHINE. 



Editor of N. E. Fakmi:r :— Sir, — Recent ex- 

 ])erimcnts, in the use of mowng macliines, have 

 demonstrated that one machine, well liarnessed and 

 directed, will cut ten acres of grass, contiiining 

 more than one ton to the acre, in as many succes- 

 sive hom-s. This shows that the labor of cutting 

 the grass can be performed, for about fifty cents per 

 ton — less than one-half the expense of cutting in 

 the ordinary w;iy by scythes. All that is wanted 

 now is, that they be made in a faithful manner of 

 good material, and they will ine^•itably come into 



general use on extended forms. I am not prepared 

 to say, what kind of machine is entitled to prefer- 

 ence — though from what I have seen I thinli there 

 is a decided preference in the cutting principle 

 a])plied to different machines. There is much rea- 

 son for complaint of the bad material and bad fin- 

 ish of the machines. Respectfully yours. 

 My 20, IS55. Essex. 



TOADS. 



[bufo vulgaris.] 



Mr. Brom^n : — Permit me to give your readers a 

 short chapter on Toads. 



From the earliest recollection of the " oldest 

 inhabitants," this little creature has been under the 

 ban, a source of terror to every little Miss, an object 

 of disgust to maids and matrons, a by-word and term 

 of reproach for every old aunt and grandma, in the 

 land, who would never seek farther in their vocabu- 

 lary of ojjprobious terms for a suitable name for any 

 little urchin, than to call him a " little nasty toad." 

 Boys have made it their sport, have j^elted it with 

 stones, pierced it through and through with sharp 

 sticks, substituted it in the place of a ball, upon a 

 bat board, throwing it high into the air, and exult- 

 ing in its torture ; and even men in the field, hoeing 

 their crojjs, have been wont to rudely thrust it aside 

 with their hoes, as a useless reptile, wondering for 

 what purpose such a loathsome oliject could have 

 been created. The Toad has been accused of being 

 a venomous reptile, a fit object of dread, a poisoner 

 of choice garden plants, deserving banishment from 

 every one's premises, and fit only to inhabit an 

 iminhahitable morass or desert. The toad has, 

 however, occasionally lieen brought into respectable 

 notice by curiosity hunters, and newspaper jiara- 

 grapli writers, whenever he has chanced to have 

 been found in a torpid state in the ca\ity of a rock, 

 or in the trunlv of a tree, in which cases, an antiquity 

 has been ascribed to it equal to that of Egy])tian 

 Mummies, or perhaps set doMii as of antediknian 

 origin. In tliis manner poor toady has gone the 

 rounds of newspaper notoriety, not for any merit of 

 value it might have possessed, but as a matter of 

 mere ciu-iosity. But this poor and despised crea- 

 ture has not l)ccn left entirely friendless, nor Avith- 

 out an advocate. 



Naturalists have placed him in the scale of useful- 

 ness where he belongs, and have shown that he is 

 not deserving the very many opprobriums that have 

 been heaped upon him. 



To the gardener the toad is a very useful assistant, 

 as it devours a great number of insects and Avorms 

 that prey upon the plants. In the dark of the 

 evening, the toad comes forth from his hiding ])lace, 

 and commences its work of extermination. Noise- 

 lessly it passes through the gaixlen, regaling itself 

 upon the insects that have just begun their noctur- 

 nal work upon the tender plants. No one but those 

 who have observed the movements of this little 

 animal, can form any correct estimate of its useful- 

 ness. A few evenings since, I watched one a short 

 time, and observed that in the sjjace of fifteen min- 

 utes, it devoured some fifteen or twenty insects, of 

 that class too, that in the day time, lie concealed 

 from the observations of the birds, but at night go 

 forth in armies to carry on their work of destruction, 

 to lay waste the gardener's toil. It woukl be a mat- 

 ter of economy for those who till the gromid, to 

 provide the toad with a suitable place for retreat in 



