No. 5. 



Domestic Economy. — The Horse's Foot. 



161 



the pails are scrubbed to a whiteness abso- 

 lutely without a stain. 



The house is as neat within as without; 

 for such results are not seen but where har- 

 mony reigns supreme, and a congeniality of 

 taste and purpose, and character, exists 

 among all the partners in the firm. The 

 kitchen, the dairy, the bed-rooms, tlie par- 

 lor, all exhibit the same neatness and order. 

 The spinning-wheel, with its corded rolls 

 upon its bench, keeps silence in the corner 

 for a little while during the presence of the 

 guest. The kitchen walls are hung round 

 with the rich ornaments of their own indus- 

 try — the long tresses and skeins of yarn, the 

 substantial hosiery of the family, and the 

 home-spun linen, emulating the whiteness 

 of the snow-drift. The floors are carpeted, 

 and the beds are made comfortable, with the 

 produce of their own flocks and fields, all 

 wrought by their own hands. The golden 

 products of the dairy; the transparent sweets 

 of the hive, obtained without robbery or mur- 

 der; the abundant contributions of the poul- 

 try-yard, the garden, and the orchard, load 

 the table with delicious luxuries. There 

 are books for their leisure hours ; and there 

 are children trained in the good old school 

 of respectful manners, where the words of 

 age, and grey hairs, and superiority, still 

 have a place; inured to early hours and 

 habits of industry, and with a curiosity and 

 thirst for knowledge, stimulated the more 

 from a feeling of the restricted means of 

 gratifying it. There is another delightful 

 feature in the picture : the aged grandmo- 

 ther in her chair of state, with a counte- 

 nance as mild and benignant as a summer 

 evening's twilight; happy in the conviction 

 of duty successtiilly discharged, by training 

 her children in habits of temperance and in 

 dustry; and receiving, as a kind of house 

 hold deity, the cheerful tribute from all, of 

 reverence and affection. 



Some may call this poetry; it is indeed 

 the true poetry of humble rural life, but 

 there is no fiction nor embellishment about 

 it. The picture is only true ; and if it were 

 not a violation of the rules which I have 

 prescribed to myself, not to mention names 

 in such cases, and that I might offend a mo- 

 desty which I highly respect, I would show 

 my readers the path which leads to the 

 house, and they should look at the original 

 for themselves. 



The owner, when I visited him, was forty- 

 five years old. At twenty-one years old, he 

 was the possessor of only fourteen dollars, 

 and of the blessing only of friends no 

 richer than himself His whole business 

 has been farming, and that only. He mar- 

 ried early ; and though he did not get a for- 



tune tvith a wife, he got a fortune in a wife. 

 They have comforted and sustained their pa- 

 rents on one side of the house. They have 

 brought up three children; and, with the co- 

 labour of the children, they have given them 

 a substantial and useful education, so that 

 each of them, now of sufficient age, is ca- 

 pable of keeping a good school, as they have 

 done, with a view to assist their own educa- 

 tion. He began with tliirty-five acres of 

 land, but has recently added fifty-five more 

 to his farm, at an expense of nearly thirteen 

 hundred dollars, for which there remained 

 to be paid five hundred — a debt which, if 

 health continued, he would be able to dis- 

 charge in two years. The products of his 

 farm are various. He raises some young 

 stock; he fattens a considerable amount of 

 pork for market, and occasionally a yoke of 

 cattle. He sells, in a neighbouring village 

 annually, about one hundred dollars worth 

 of fruit, principally apples and peaches. 

 Such a situation may be considered, in the 

 best sense of the term, as independent as that 

 of any man in the country. 



Now what are the causes of such success? 

 Persevering industry; the strictest and most 

 absolute temperance ; the most particular 

 frugality, and always turning every thing to 

 the best account; living within his own re- 

 sources; and above all things, never in any 

 case, suffering himself to contract a debt, 

 excepting in the purchase of land, which 

 could be made immediately productive, and 

 where, of course, the perfect security for 

 the debt could neither be used up, nor 

 wasted, nor squandered. — Colmari's fourth 

 Report on the Agriculture of Mass. 



A Horse's Foot. — The foot of the horse 

 is one of the most ingenious and unexampled 

 species of mechanism in animal structure. 

 The hoof contains a series of vertical and 

 thin laminte of horn, so numerous as to 

 amount to about 500, and forming a com- 

 plete lining to it. In this are fitted as many 

 laminae belonging to the coffin bone ; while 

 both sets are elastic and adherent. The 

 edge of a quire of paper inserted leaf by 

 leaf into another, will convey a sufficient 

 idea of the arrangement. Thus the weight 

 of the animal is supported by as many elas- 

 tic springs as there are laminae in all the 

 feet, amounting to about 4000; distributed 

 in the most secure manner, since every spring 

 is acted on in an oblique direction. Such 

 is the contrivance for the safety of an ani- 

 mal, destined to carry greater weights than 

 those of his own body, and to carry those 

 also under the hazard of heavy shocks. — Ma- 

 iculloch. 



