THE FARMER'S TABLE. 137 



treatment of food. The days are changed since Peter the 

 Great grappled in his fists a knuckle of venison to satisfy 

 hunger. The farmer's larder ought to be full, and full of 

 good things. If he grows them, he may surely test them. 

 He ought to know a yearling Southdown haunch from a 

 pinched loin of an old Merino. He will need stronger 

 meats than the man who keeps within doors mostly ; but 

 they need not be gross. I think we incline to too much 

 of grossness in this, — making light of that larger variety, 

 and those multiplied delicacies which confront us in town. 

 I think we might well substitute tender and luscious fruits 

 for some of the heavier puddings and indigestible pastry 

 we incline to. There is no good reason why crisp celery, 

 mushrooms, and other such delicacies, not more diffi- 

 cult of growth than a tobacco crop, should be given over 

 wholly to townsfolk; and, if a brook is available, nothing is 

 simpler than to have a stock of trout at command. Such 

 appetizing dishes will commend the table to sons and daugh- 

 ters returning from school or city. It is not essential to farm 

 thrift that we limit ourselves to pork and corn-bread, royal 

 as these are in their places, nor should poultry be kept back 

 for the market only. A good broiler of Brahma or Dork- 

 ing, if always "put in the place where it will do most good," 

 should surely find its way, sometimes, under a farmer's jacket. 

 We want to live up to the level of our work, and of our 

 produce, to get an appreciative sense of what it is really worth. 

 We expect a clergyman to live up to the level of his best 

 preachment ; we don't wish our legislators to ignore the laws 

 they make — except for back pay. We don't expect tailors 

 to be ill-dressed, nor should a farmer's homestead fail of being 

 well stocked with those riper delicacies, which, with his 

 improved breeds and new fruits, he is multiplying every year 

 for the denizens of towns. Whatever civilizing influences — 

 and who shall say they do not exist? — may belong to improved 

 marketing, belong, of right, and in fullest reach, to the well- 

 appointed farm homestead. 



I come now to a very brief consideration of those interior 

 fittings of the farmer's homestead, which are more especially 

 under the control of the mistress of it ; and if I might venture 

 to address a word to these "parties of the second part," it would 



18 



