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THE GENESEE FARMER. 



July 



Caiilcs' JDfpartincnt. 



"RURAL HOURS." 



A BOOK has recently been published, entitled "Rural 

 Hours," by Miss Cooper, of Otsego county, N. Y., 

 daughter of J. Fen:<imoue Cooper, the novelist. 

 It contains pleasing pictures of rural life. Miss 

 Cooper is a close observer of nature — she sees 

 beauty in the flower, majesty in the forest tree, music 

 in the rippling waters, the sighing breezes, and 

 poetry everywiiere. We give a few pages from the 

 work, and we hope the remarks on the pilfering of 

 fruits and flowers will at least have an effect on those 

 who have hitherto acted thus from thoughtlessness. 

 If ycu must pilfer, cut the buttons from our Sunday 

 coat, or take the money from our pockets, but touch 

 not our fruits and flowers. 



" One always loves a garden ; labor wears its pleas- 

 antest aspect there. F'rom the first days of spring, 

 to latest autumn, we move about among growing 

 plants, gay flowers, and cheerful fruits ; and there is 

 some pretty change to note by the light of every sun. 

 Even the narrowest cottage patch looks pleasantly to 

 those who come and go along the highway ; it is 

 well to stop now and then when walking, and look 

 over the paling of such little gardens, and note what 

 is going on there. 



" Potatoes, cabbages, and onions, are grown here by 

 every family as first requisites. Indian corn and 

 cucumbers are also thought indispensable, for Amer- 

 icans of all classes eat as much maize as their Indian 

 predecessors. And as for cucumbers, they are re- 

 quired at every meal of which a thorough-going 

 Yankee partakes, either as salad in summer, or pickled 

 in winter. There is usually a pumpkin-vine running 

 about the corn hilis, its large yellow flowers and gol- 

 den fruit showing, as a matter of course, below tlie 

 glossy leaves of the maize ; a part of the fruit is made 

 into pies, the rest goes to the cow or pig. Some- 

 times you find squashes, also, in these small gardens, 

 with a few tomatoes, perhaps ; but these last are dif- 

 ficult to raise here, on account of the occasional frosts 

 of May. 



" Flowers are seldom forgotten in the cottage gar- 

 den ; the widest walk is lined with them, and there 

 are others beneath the low windows of the house. 

 You have rose-bushes, sun-flowers, and holly-hocks, 

 as a matter of course ; generally a cluster of pinks, 

 bachelor's buttons, also, and a sweet pea, which is a 

 great favorite ; plenty of marigolds, a few poppies, 

 large purple china asters, and a tuft of the liiac phlox. 

 Such are the blossoms to be seen before most doors ; 

 and each is pretty in its own time and place ; one 

 has a long-standing regard for them all, including 

 the homely sun-flower, whif.-h we should be sorry to 

 miss from its old haunts. Tlicn the scarlet flowering 

 bean, so intimately connected with childish recol- 

 lections of the hero Jack and his wonderful adven- 

 ture, may still be seen flourishing in the cottage 

 garden, and it would seem to have fallen from a pod 

 of the identical plant celebrated in nursery rhyme, 

 for it has a great inclination fur climbing, which is 

 generally encouraged by training it over a window. 

 We do not hear, however, of any in these parts 

 reaching the roof in a single night's growth. You 

 must go to the new lands on the prairies for such 

 marvels now-a-days. They tell a wonderful story of 

 a cucumber vine somewhere beyond the great lakes, 



in the last " new settlement," probably ; the seed 

 having been sowed one evening in a good bit of soil, 

 the farmer, going to his work next morning, found 

 it not only out of the ground, but grown 6fo much 

 that he was curious to measure it ; 'he followed it 

 to the end of his garden, over a fence, along an In- 

 dian trail, through an oak opening, and then seeing 

 it stretch some distance beyond, he went back for his 

 horse, but while he was saddling old Bald, the vine 

 had so much the advantage of him that it reached the 

 next clearing before he did; there he left it to go 

 back to dinner, and how much farther it ran that day 

 Ebenezer could not tell for certain.' 



'• We have no such wonders hereabouts ; and even 

 the ambitious bean seldom reaches higher than a low 

 roof ; nor is its growth always sufficiently luxuriant 

 to shade the window, for it often shares that task 

 with a morning-glory. The plan of these leafy 

 blinds is a pretty one, but they are too often trained 

 in stiff' and straight lines ; a poetical idea, tiree a 

 quatrc rpingles. Frequently we see a cottage with 

 a door in the centre, and one window on each side, 

 and vines trained over the sashes in this way, v^hich 

 gives it an odd look, like a house in green spectacles, 

 as it were. When hop vines are used for screening 

 the windows, which is often the case, the plant is not 

 so easily restrained ; and throwing out its luxuriant 

 branches right and left, lakes care of itself. 



" Currants are almost the only fruit seen in the 

 smaller gardens of our neighborhood ; even goose- 

 berries are not so general ; both raspberries and 

 strawberries grow wild here in such profusion that 

 few persons cultivate them. Currants, by-the-by, 

 both black and red, are also native plants ; the black 

 currant is by no means rare in this State, and very 

 much resembles the varieties cultivated in gardens ; 

 the wild red currant is chiefly confined to the north- 

 ern parts of the countr)', and it is precisely like that 

 which we cultivate. Both purple and green goose- 

 berries are also found wild in our woods. 



'•It is often a matter of surprise and regret that 

 fruit should not be more cultivated among us in gar- 

 dens of all sizes ; but the indifferent common cherry 

 is almost the only fruit tree found here in cottage 

 gardens. Even the farmers neglect cherries, and 

 plums, and pears, surprisingly. 



"There is, unhappily, a very serious objection to 

 cultivating fruit in our village gardens ; fruit-steal- 

 ing is a common crime in this part of the world ; 

 and the standard of principle on such subjects is as 

 low as it well can be in our rural communities. 

 Property of this kind is almost without protection 

 among us ; there are laws on the subject, but these 

 are never enforced, and of course people are not wil- 

 ling to throw away money, and time, and thought, to 

 raise fruit for those who might easily raise it for 

 themselves, if they would take the pains to do so. 

 There can be no doubt that this state of things is a 

 serious obstacle to the cultivation of choice fruit in 

 our villages ; horticulture would be in a much higher 

 condition here if it were not for this evil. But the 

 impunity with which boys, and men, too, are allowed 

 to commit thefts of this kind, is really a painful pic- 

 ture, for it must ine\:itably lead to increase a spirit 

 of di.ohouesty throughout the community. 



"It is the same case with flowers. Many people 

 seem to consider them as public property, though 

 cultivated at private expense. It was but the other 

 day that we saw a little girl, one of the village Sun- 

 day-scholars, moreover, put her hand witiiiu the 



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