1854. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



2.35 



dozen insects treated in this way, makes the num- 

 ber less to propagate the species; but most other 

 plans only drive them to other places, if indeed 

 they have any effect at all. 



The other method is, pick the fallen fruit, and 

 either burn or empty it in the water where the 

 embryo curculio will drown. I think this insect 

 propagates its species as fast in apples, as in any 

 other fruit. If any one doubts this, let him visit 

 a tree laden with fruit, when it is about the size 

 of cranberries, or walnuts, and carefully exam- 

 ine the abortive specimens with which the earth is 

 sometimes literally covered ; observe the crescent 

 marks, and the small worms in the fruit, and I 

 trust he will be convinced. 



Where these fallen specimens are expased to the 

 scorching rays of the sun, it usually bakes them, 

 and theii- contents ; but when shaded, the embryo 

 curculios nearly all mature. Pick and boil or 

 empty this infected fruit into the river. This 

 may seem like too much labor, but you will sure- 

 ly receive a rich reward for care and labor thus 

 bestowed . 



Dracut, Feb. 15, 1854. Asa Clement. 



For the New England Farmer. 



SEWING MACHINE. 



BY HENRY F. FRENCH. 



" Work — work — work, 



From weary chime to chime. 



Work — work — work, 



As prisoners work for crime, 



Band and gusset and seam, 



Seam and gusset and band. 



Til) the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed 



As well as the weary hand." Hood. 



To THE Ladies of New E.nglaxd: — Were an 

 angel to appear before you , some pleasant morning 

 in spring, and say, that he had come to bestow 

 upon you, for your patient endurance of life's 

 wearisome labors, a reward of two hours of time 

 daily — two hours of waking conscious, active time, 

 for all your future life, how would your schemes 

 of life expand. Your education and early asso 

 ciations have inspired you with a taste for literary 

 pursuits, but family cares, the want of servants, 

 and the want of time, have compelled you to re 

 linquish them. 



You were instructed in music and drawing in 

 your youth, you cultivated flowers, and traced in 

 botany, and its kindred studies, the curious analo- 

 gies of nature, but in later years, your time has 

 been filled with duties more imperative, and with 

 a secret sigh, you have, without complaint, sacri- 

 ficed on the household altar, the pleasures and 

 graceful accomplishments of your early years. A» 

 to mere amusements, you could, well enough, Tjear 

 that loss, but to feel that the cultivation of the 

 mind must cease, that you must stop in the pur- 

 suit of knowledge, while husband and brother and 

 friend are still advancing, to be conscious that 

 the sympathy that once bound you together 

 in intellectual pursuits, is daily lessening, this is a 

 burden that no one can help you to bear. 



Blessing the good angel for tliis roost precious 

 gift, you, who better than all others, know its 

 value, would treasure it with Sixered care. You 

 would devote it, not to frivolous amusements, not 

 to idleness, or dreamy listlessness, but to social en- 

 joyments, to mental culture, and to active benevo- 

 lence. 



Constant physical labor is not, perhaps, a sevare 

 burden to the ignorant and degraded, but for one 

 whose moral and intellectual training has elevated 

 him to the true appreciation of life's great ends, a 

 merely servile life, a life of manual labor, is not 

 enough. To ladies of education and refinement, 

 the petty toils and harassing cares of the family 

 are trying, indeed, but when we add to those, the 

 constant demand upon them for labor with the 

 needle, an employment, trying alike to the pati- 

 ence, the sight, and the nervous system, an em- 

 ployment which never ends, which takes every 

 moment that ought t<)be given to leisure, amuse- 

 ment or reading, we have some idea of the value 

 of the angel gift, with which we commenced. 



The spiritualists tell us of the influence of mind 

 over matter, how, by niiere force of the human 

 will, tables and other lifeless quadrupeds may be 

 made to walk, as if alive, but the laws by which 

 such things are done, are not sufficiently under- 

 stood, to ena1)le us to work out from them any 

 valuable practical results. But the laws by which 

 wood and iron may be constructed into machinery, 

 and so made, instead of human l)ones and sinews, 

 to perform servile labor, are working, always, for 

 human comfort and human freedom. 



Of tliis description is the recently invented Scu:- 

 ing Machine, an invention doubtless, sent down 

 from Heaven, in answer to the prayers of suffering 

 thousands, an invention destined to ))e8tow upon 

 New England women the priceless boon of time 

 for mental cultivation and social enjoyment. 

 Slavery to the needle is the peculiar slavery of 

 New England ladies. The price of such labor, 

 to those who are paid for it, is pitifully small, 

 and yet the customs of society demand so large an 

 amount of needlework, that even those, who among 



