820 



THE GENESEE FAR^fER. 



|\oiuic( Iro^lf's |a()c. 



HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE. 



• Ah honest old German of Brooklyn, New York, who, 

 by pickiiij; up bones about the streets, had saved enough 

 , to purchase a cheap lot in the suburbs of the city, left 

 I the streets as a picker, and commenced as a trader— buy- 

 ing the bones of the chiffoniers and t>elling them to the 

 bone-black makers. He drew his hand-cart filled with 

 bones, twice a day, purchased from the pickers. At night 

 he would cross the ferry with his empty cart to his home — 

 not exactly empty, however, for it always contained at 

 least one brick, which he never was at a loss to find in the 

 streets of New York. His daily brick was deposited on 

 his lot, and in the course of time old Jacob waxed rich 

 enough to think of building a house on his lot. His 

 bricks had bv this time become a considnrable pile, so 

 considerable indeed that he actually built a snug little 

 two-story house without being obliged to ciill on the 

 brick-maker for a single one. Old Jacob certainly got a 

 cheap house. After he built his hou.se, as he still 

 brought over his cart nightly, and was not in want of 

 bricks, Jie brought over one or more cobble-stones at 

 every trip ; so that by the time the street was ordered to 

 be paved, he saved the expense of paving-stones, furnish- 

 ing his stock on hand. Now, this old man thought it no 

 sin to pick up an isolated brick or stone— they belonged 

 to no one. To have taken a brick from a pile, or any 

 stone from a f.eap, would have been, in Jacob's eyes, 

 'stealing, and the old man would have rather gone home 

 empty. No ! Jacob's house is more honest than many u 

 Fifth Avenue brown-stone front. 



THE TOOLS GREAT MEN WORK WITH. 



MEMORY. 



Sib William Hamilton tells some marvellous stories 

 in his lectures on "Memory." Ben Jolinson could not 

 only repeal all he had written, but whole books he had 

 read! Niebuhr in his'youth was employed in one of the 

 public offices of Denmark, where part of a book of ac 

 counts having been lost, he restored it from bis recollec- 

 tion. Seneca complains of old age, because he can not, 

 as he once did, repeat two thousand names in the order 

 they were read to him; and avers that on one occasion, 

 when at hi-i studies, two hundred unconnected verses hav- 

 ing been pronounced by diflTerent pupils of his preceptor, 

 he repeated them in a reversed order, proceeding from 

 the last to the first uttered. A quick and retentive 

 memory, both of words and things, is an invaluable 

 treasure, and may he had by any one who will take the 

 pains. Theodore Parker, when in the divinity tschool, 

 had a notion that his memory was defective and needed 

 looking after, and he had an immense chronological chart 

 hungup in his room, and tasked himself to commit the 

 contents, all the names and dates from Adam and the 

 year one, down to Nimrod, Ptolemy, Sofer, IlflioffHbiilus. 

 and the rest. _ Our verbal memory soonest faiU us, unless 

 we affpiid to it nnd kfep it in fresh ord«T. A child will 

 commit and recite rcrA/i/Vm easier than an ndnlt, and eirls 

 than hovs. To keep the verbal m.'niorv fresh, it is ciiiiif:!! 

 exorcise to study and recite new la'iiriiMires. or commit 

 and Irt-nsiirp up choice passages, making them a part of 



It is not tools that make the workman, but the trained 

 skill and perseverance of the man himself. Indeed, it is 

 proverbial that the bad workman never yet had a good 

 tool. Some one asked Opie by what wonderful process 

 he mixed his colors. "I mix them with my brains, sir," 

 was his reply. It is the same with every workman who 

 would excel. Ferguson made marvelous things- such as 

 his wooden clock, that accurately measured the hours — 

 Dy means of a common penknife, a tool in everybody's 

 hands ; but then everybody is not a Ferguson. A pan of 

 water and two thermometers were the tools by which Dr. 

 Black discovered latent heat; and a prism, a lens, and a 

 slieet of pasteboard enabUd Newton to unfold the compo- 

 sition of light and the origin of color. An eminent 

 foreign savant once called upon Dr. Wollaston, and re- 

 quested to be shown over his laboratory, in which 

 science had been enriched by so many impoifaut discov- 

 eries, when the Doctor took him into a study, and j>oint- 

 ing to an old tea-tr.ay on the table, containing a few 

 watch-glasses, tost-papers, a small balance and a blow- 

 pipe, said: "There is all the laboratory I have!" Stot- 

 hard learned the art of combiningcolors by closely study- 

 ing butterflies' wings; he would often say that no one 

 knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt stick 

 and a barn-door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and can- 

 vas. Berwick first practiced drawing on the cottage 

 walls of his native village, which he covered with 

 sketches in chalk; and Benjamin West made his first 

 brushes out of a cat's tail. Ferguson laid himself down 

 in the fields by night in a blanket, and made a map of 

 the heavenly bodies, by means of a thread with small 

 beads on it, stretched between his eye and the stars. 

 Franklin first robbed the thunder-cloud of its lightning 

 by means of a kite made with two cross-sticks and a 

 handkerchief. Watt made his first model oh the con- 

 densing steam-engine out of an old anatomist's syringe, 

 used to inject the arteries previous to dissection. Gitlbrd 

 worked his first problem in mathematics, when a cob- 

 bler's apprentice, upon small scraps of leather, which be 

 beat smooth for the purpose, while Rittenhouse, the as- 

 tronomer, first calculated the eclipses on his \)\o^- 

 \\.\ni\<i.— Smiles' Self -Help. 



Our mental wealth. 



My first is no dissrraee In tfll ; 

 AViilidiit the spo'.nd ><iu c an n^t spell; 

 Till' lliinl will lii-lp \V>u to a wife. 

 To liless or curse vou all your life. 

 Love-Ieltor. 



WnY is a wash-woman a great fool ? Because she sets 

 out the tubs to catch soft wafer when it is rai-ning hard. 



IIow can it be proved that a horse has six legs? Be- 

 cause he has fore legs in front and two behind. 



What sort of birds make cool summer pautaloons? 

 Russia ducks. 



Win- are the Marys the most amiable of their sex? Be- 

 cause they can always be Molly-fied. 



Wdt are the teeth like verbs? Because they arc regu- 

 lar, irregular and defective. 



What must you add to nine to make six? S, for ix 

 I with S is six. 



