194 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Aug. 



£abic0' Pcpartincnt. 



LOVE OF FLOWERS. 



While in England, no sight was more pleasing to 

 us than the love of flowers so general among the 

 people — it is shown equally by the low and the high, 

 the young and the old. Coleman observed this, and 

 we take the following remarks from his European 

 Tour: 



"Looking out of my window a short time since, I 

 saw that the laborer wheeling his barrow before the 

 door had his button-hole decorated with a beautiful 

 geranium. I went into the street, and the driver of 

 the omnibus, whom I first met, wore a handsome 

 nosegay. I met a bridal party, and, besides the 

 white favors worn by all the servants in attendance, 

 each one had a bunch of flowers at his breast. I met 

 the crowd of magnificient equipages hastening to a 

 drawing room to pay their courtly homage to a sov- 

 ereign queen, whose virtues and most exemplary de- 

 meanor render her worthy of the homage of true affec- 

 tion and respect ; and every lady bears in her hand a 

 magnificient boquet ; and the coachmen and the foot- 

 men seem to emulate each other in the gayety and 

 beauty of the flowers they all wear. At St. Paul's, 

 at the opening of the term of courts, the long proces- 

 sion of grave and learned judges, who then go in 

 state to church, appears, each one, with an elegant 

 nosegay in his hand. At the opera, upon the breath- 

 less and successful competitors for public favor, in 

 the midst of a tempest of applause, descends a perfect 

 shower of floral wreaths and rich boquets. 



" I sympathise heartily in this taste of the English 

 for fl nvers, which thus prevades all ranks, an^, flow- 

 ers being accessible to all, and among the most inno- 

 cent and the cheapest of all pleasures, diffuses a vast 

 amount of enjoyment." 



We have good reason to believe that the love of 

 flowers is increasing in our own country. We had 

 more than a thousand applications for packages of 

 flower seeds, from our female readers, all of which 

 were promptly supplied, with the exception of eight 

 or ten. About this number of letters were mislaid, 

 and not discovered until too late to send this season. 

 In the fall we will furnish these with a superior col- 

 lection, and thus endeavor in some measure to atone 

 for our neglect. We have not learned how our 

 friends are prospering in growing annuals. We 

 have in our garden now, Slignonette, Portulaccas, 

 Balsams, Bartonia Aurea, and Ten Week Stocks, all 

 finely in blossom ; and they prove to be fine sorts. 

 We should be pleased to hear from the ladies, of 

 their success. 



We have a fine collection of California Annuals 

 in blossom, furnished us by Tuorkurx, of New York. 

 They attracted attention at our Horticultural Show, 

 as they deserved. We are saving seed, and between 

 this and spring we shall be pleased to furnish them 

 to any of our lady readers who wish to add to their 

 collection of fine annuals. 



PREMIUM FOR BREAD. 



Messrs. Editors : — In noticing premiums awarded 

 by the State Agricultural Society, for articles recor- 

 ded in a former number of the Farmer, 1 was aston- 

 ished to find none for the best bread. There may be 

 some cause for this, of which I am ignorant ; if so. 



I should like to be informed ; otherwise I consider it a 

 great oversight to neglect the "staff of life." What 

 is there in all your mechanism, grains, &tc., but has 

 some bearing, in the end, to bread ? VVe could make 

 a good meal without many of the articles for which 

 we find medals, &fc., awarded ; but, could we make 

 a single meal without bread ? Then of how much 

 importance is it that it should be good. If there is 

 any encouragement in this offering rewards, wl>y not 

 to the good bread-maker ? There is nothing in all 

 household affairs, and perhaps not many things in 

 the agricultural line, that requires more good under- 

 standing, quickness of perception, &i.c., to render 

 it what it should be, than bread-making. The 

 need of encouragement we could ascertain, did we 

 enter our district schools at 12 o'clock, or even our 

 wealthy neighbors' houses. In these we should see 

 black bread, heavy bread, milk-emptyings bread, — in 

 fact, all kinds of bread but good bread. This is not 

 in the wheat, it is not in the mill, — it is in the making, 

 as I well know. If the disposition and character is 

 formed by the food we eat, as some afiirm, it is no 

 wonder we have some heavy, sour characters, and 

 tends to point out the necessity of having the food 

 most general among children, wholesome and well 

 prepared. In visiting the American Institute, at 

 New York, last fall, I there saw bread exhibited from 

 different bakers. Why not encourage the same in 

 families, when it is of such vast importance ? If it 

 is wrong, I know the discerning mind of the editor 

 of the Farmer will endeavor to make it right, there- 

 fore I will submit it, and respectfully subscribe my- 

 self A Farmer's Wife. 



We know of no excuse for this neglect of the 

 " staff of life" by the State Society, unless it be the 

 length of time after made before it could be inspected 

 by the judges and the public. At our County Fair 

 last year, about a dozen difterent specimens of bread 

 were presented, and it formed by no means the least 

 interesting part of the exhibition. 



LABOR-SAVING SOAP, 



Take 14 lbs. of bar soap, or 5 gallons of good com- 

 mon soft soap, 3 lbs. of sal soda, 1| lbs. rosin made 

 fine, 2 oz. spirits turpentine, 8oz. salt ; boil all these 

 in 5 gallons of soft water, until the rosin is melted ; 

 then let it cool. When cold, it may be cut and put 

 away for use, when we add about double the quan- 

 tity of water to what soap is to be used at a time. 



Manner of using. — In a common farmer's lamily 

 of eight or ten persons, we put a half pint of reduced 

 soap into a quantity of water sufficient to soak all the 

 white clothes at a time, and if convenient, over night. 

 In the morning we pound the clothes a little, or rub 

 the most dirty spots a little, then wring them out 

 and put them to boil in water similarly soaped, for a 

 few minutes ; then suds and rinse. Some do not 

 boil, and they say their clothes are clean. Calico 

 clothes are put in the water where the white clothes 

 were soakeJ, and pounded or rubbed a little, but no 

 additional soap is to be used. Hard water is said to 

 be as good as feoft for wa.sliing, but here it is all soft. 

 Our women dc their washing in half the time they 

 could do it with common good soap, and it is better 

 done. My shirts were always hard to wash, and 

 when done, there would often be streaks not entirely 

 clean ; but now they are always clean. Damel 

 Edwards. — Little Genesee^ JV. Y.. July, 1851. 



m 



