&l)c .farmer's ittoirtljhj Visitor. 



181 



From the Ohio Cultivator. 

 Plain Advice to Country (.'iris. 

 You know I said that I could quilt almost ns 

 fust as two of you. The reason is, I take care of 

 my hands. One half of you are too proud to tlo 

 this. You would not be caught putting a glove 

 on to sweep, or hoe, or weed in the garden, be- 

 cause you think it would look as if you wanted 

 to be fine ladies. If you see any one taking care 

 of her hands or careful to wear a sun-bonnet to 

 preserve her complexion, you say she is " proud 

 and stuck up." Hut it is you who arc proud — 

 too proud to think you require any care to look 

 nice. You have an idea you look well enough 

 at any rate. So you just make yourself as rough 

 and coarse as ever you can, by way of being in- 

 dependent. Your hands grow as stiff and hard 

 as if you held a plough and swung a scythe ; 

 and when you take a needle, you can scarcely 

 feel it in your fingers. This is wrong. There 

 are many things which women ought to do, 

 which require their hands to be soft and pliable, 

 and they should be careful to keep them so, in 

 order to make them useful. Every woman who 

 lives in the country should knit herself a pair of 

 woolen gloves, with long fingers closed at the 

 tops— no mils, to let the fingers get hard. There 

 should be a piece of ribbed work tit the wrist, to 

 make them stay on. 



When you use your hoe, rake or broom, put 

 on your gloves — when you take hold of a skillet, 

 pot, or kettle handle, take a cloth to keep your 

 bauds from Icing seared and hardened. When 

 you wash clothes or dishes, do not have water so 

 hot as to feel unpleasant. Many girls scald their 

 hands until they can put them into wat r almost 

 boiling. Such hands are unfit to use a needle 

 or a pin. They are not so good to hold a baby 

 or dress a wound. Take care of your hands, 

 and do not forget your faces. I have seen 

 many country girls, who, at sixteen had com- 

 plexions like alabaster, anil at twenty-six their 

 faces would look like a run net bag that hung six 

 weeks in the chimney corner. One reason of 

 this is, they do not wear a bonnet to protect 

 them from the sun. Another reason is, the habit 

 they have of baking their faces before a wood 

 fire. I have seen women stand before a great 

 roasting fire, and cook, until I thought their 

 brains were as well stewed as the chickens ; and 

 they would get so used to it, they would make 

 no attempt to shield their heads from the heat. 

 Nay, they would sit down iu the evening, and 

 bake their faces by the hour; and this is one of 

 the reasons why American women grow old, 

 withered, and wrinkled, fifteen years before 

 their lime. 



But another and the greatest reason is, your 

 diet. People in this country live too well, and 

 eat too much hot bread and meat. Country peo- 

 ple usually eat richer food than those who live 

 iu the cities, and that is a reason why, with all 

 their fresh air, their average age is little greater 

 than that of city folks. Thousands of beautiful, 

 blooming country girls make old, sallow-faced 

 women of themselves before they are thirty, by 

 drinking coffee, smoking tobacco, and eating hot 

 bread. They shorten their lives by these prac- 

 tices about as much as city ladies with their fash- 

 ionable follies. I do not know what you think 

 about il, girls, but 1 think it is about as much a 

 sin for women to get old, brown, withered faces, 

 by eating too much, as it is for men to get red 

 noses by drinking too much. Very few people 

 think it a disgrace to have a bilious fever; hut 1 

 would just as lief the doctor would tell me that 



I was drunk as that I was bilious. The one 

 would come from drinking too much, the other 

 from eating too much ; and where is the differ- 

 ence? All this is a very serious matter, for it 

 affects health and life ; and the reason why I 

 talk about your complexion in speaking of it, is, 

 that every body loves to look well, Ahether they 

 will acknowledge it or not. Now, people can- 

 not look well unless they are well; and no one 

 can be well very long who does not try to take 

 care of herself. The woman who roasts her 

 head at the fire, disorders her blood, brings on 

 headache, injures her health, and makes her face 

 like a piece of leather; when she swallows hot 

 coffee, hot bread, greasy victuals and strong 

 pickles, she destroys her stomach, rots her teeth, 

 shortens her life, and makes herself too ugly for 

 any use, except scaring the crows off the corn. 



J. G. S. 



Oh, be Kindly. 



BY J II N ANDERSON. 



Oh . be kindly ! oh, be kindly I 



When you labor 'roong the vile, 

 Ne'er forget that vice has blindly 



D.irken'd all their minds with guile. 

 If your counsel should not light them 



To the haven, as you seek 

 Oh, in mercy do not blight them 



Farther with the words you speak ! 



Oh, be kindly to the erring ! 



Let your words be soft and true, 

 And. countenances cheering, 



Try what kindness can do. 

 If their gloom you wish to brighten, 



.Search for hope and nurse it strong ; 

 Hate has been for ages fighting 



On the side of fraud and wrong ! 



Oh, be kindly to the victim ; 



Do not magnify his crime ; 

 Rather study to convince him — 



He may yet redeem the time ' 

 Anger is a bad consoler — 



Prison records teaching this ; 

 Kindness is a sweeter condoler — - 



All its seeds bud into bliss ! 



Oh, be kindly, when you reason 



With the sinner on his sin ! 

 If your precepts are in season. 



Active love will lead him in. 

 Look at spring, how she envelops 



Stunted woods in garments rare ; 

 So with gentleness develop 



i\l<'ral flowers as bright and fair ! 



Oh, be kindly, eversmihng 



When you show the slave his thrall ; 

 Few men like to bear reviling 



When their hearts are full of gall I 

 Harshness is a despot's treasure — 



Let those copy who esteem ; 

 Christ has left a golden measure — 



Wise meu love to follow him ! 



Zephyr winds are soft and loving, 



Oh, their balmy breath is kind ; 

 See the streamlets in their roving 



Belter every flower they find ! 

 True it is that nature rages — 



Speaks in accents fierce and 6trong— 

 But the wreck, like pictured pages, 



Seem to say her rage is wrong '. 



Against disease here, the strongest fence, 

 Is the defensive virtue, Abstinence. 



Beware of little expenses; a small leak will 

 sink a great ship. 



An ounce of wit that is bought, 

 Is worth a pound that is taught. 



Poetry ok a Steam Engine. — There is, to 

 our thinking, something awfully grand in the 

 contemplation of a vast steam engine. Stand 

 amid ils ponderous beams and bars, wheels and 

 cylinders, and watch their unceasing play ; how 

 regular and how powerful ! The machinery of 

 a lady's Geneva watch is not more nicely adjust- 

 ed — the rush of the avalanche is not more awful 

 in its strength. Old Gothic cathedrals are sol- 

 emn places, preaching solemn things ; but to 

 him who thinks, an engine room may preach a 

 more solemn lesson still. It will tell him of 

 mind — mind wielding matter at its will — mind 

 triumphing over physical difficulties — man as- 

 serting his great supremacy — "intellect battling 

 with the elements." And how exquisitely com- 

 plete in every detail! — how every little bar and 

 screw fit and work together ! Vast as the ma- 

 chine is, let a bolt be but a tenth part of an inch 

 too long or too short, the whole fabric is disor- 

 ganized. It is one complete piece of harmony 

 — an iron essay upon unity, design and execu- 

 tion. There is deep poetry in the steam etigina 

 — more of the poetry of motion than in the 

 bound of an antelope — more of the poetry of 

 power than iu the dash of a cataract. And 

 ought it not to be a lesson to those who laugh at 

 novelties, and put no faith in inventions, to con- 

 sider that this complex fabric, this triumph of 

 art and science, was once the laughing stock of 

 thousands, and once only the waking phantasy 

 of a boy's mind, as he sat, and, in seeming idle- 

 ness, watched a little column of vapor rise from 

 the spout of a tea-kettle ? 



Drive thy husinesss or it will drive thee. 



George Washington— Extract from his Fare- 

 well Address. 



"The unity of government which constitutes 

 you one people, is also now dear to you. It is 

 justly so; for it is a main pillar iu the edifice of 

 your real independence, the support of your tran- 

 quility at home, your peace abroad, of your safe- 

 ty, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which 

 you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee 

 that from different causes, and from different 

 quarters, much pains will be taken, many arti- 

 fices employed to weaken in your minds the 

 conviction of this truth — as this is the point in 

 your political fortress against which the batteries 

 of internal and external enemies will be most 

 constantly and actively (though often covertly 

 and insidiously) directed — it is of infinite mo- 

 ment that you siiould properly estimate the im- 

 mense value of your national union to your col- 

 lective and individual happiness; that you should 

 cherish a cordial, habitual, and immoveable at- 

 tachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think 

 and to speak of it as the palladium of your politi- 

 cal safety and prosperity ; watching lor its pre- 

 servation w ith jealous anxiety ; discountenancing 

 whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it 

 can in any eveut be abandoned ; and indignantly 

 frowning upon the first dawning of every at- 

 tempt to alienate any portion of our country 

 from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties 

 which now link together the various parts. 



" In contemplating the causes which may dis- 

 turb our union, it occurs as matters of serious 

 concern that any ground should have been fur- 

 nished for characterizing parties by geographical 

 discriminations — northern and southern, Atlantic 

 and western; whence designing men may en- 

 deavor to excite a belief that there is a real dif- 

 ference of local interests and views. One of the 

 experiments of party to acquire influence within 

 particular districts is, to misrepresent the opin- 

 ions and aims of other districts. You cannot 

 shield yourselves too much against the jealous- 

 ies and heart-burnings which spring from these 

 misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to 

 each other those who ought to be bound together 

 by fraternal affection." 



Vicissitudes of Mercantile Life. 



From an article in Hunt's Magazine we copy 

 the following interesting statements. They af- 

 ford a melancholy illustration of mercantile life: 



"It is asserted that but one eminent merchant 

 (and his death is still recent and lamented) has 

 ever continued in active business in the city of 

 New York, to the close of a long life, without 

 undergoing bankruptcy, or a suspension of pay- 

 ments, in some oue of the various crises through 



