1877. 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



19 



to be as agreeable as jiossiblo to each otlier. 

 Fathers and motliers, this will do more than 

 you dreain, in inakinr; your children "rciw up 

 real gentlemen and ladies. Sisters, let us 

 hear from yon on these home subjects more. 

 They arc ot vital iniportanee to us. We can 

 learn niueh, if we only will, from each other, 

 thron^h this "Home Circle Department." 

 We can make it worth a great deal to us, if 

 we will only use it. Let lis all write for it, 

 and give free e.^pressiou to our views. — M. L. 

 Mart/. 



We lieartily endorse every line of the above 

 able paper— on a most inipm-tant moral and 

 domestic subject- -which we find in a recent 

 number of Co/ma/i's i^(m/ Worhl; and, al- 

 though we have entertained similar senti- 

 ments for many years, yet, we confess we have 

 never yet been "fortunate enough to realize 

 them in ultimates; for the reason that they 

 occui)y a hiijher and more cultivated plane 

 than that which ol)taiiis among the masses of 

 our people, even where they are "well to do 

 in the world."' The God-appointed meal— 

 whether at morning, noon or evening, or at 

 any other orderly and convenient period — is not 

 made the occasion that it ought to lie, either 

 morally, socially, or physically, and probably 

 never will be, until a race of refined and prac- 

 tically educated women assume the absolute 

 control of the domestic ariangements of the 

 household. Never until the meal is more or 

 less characterized by a spiritual realization of 

 that presence, which nearly nineteen centur- 

 iesago enunciated the divine injunction — "Eat 

 this in reinenibrance of Me." Not merely 

 eaten thus on special or set occasions, but, 

 "As oflen as ye eat it." The maternal head 

 of a house who is only solicitous about setting 

 an orilerly and tastefully arranged table for 

 occasional or transient visitors, and not hab- 

 itually lor her own family, notwith.standing 

 all her slavish labor and her morbid anxiety, 

 may be doing less to tit her fen- that beatitic 

 realm where "order is the first law," than 

 she thinks she is. And even if she is doing 

 lier very best, so far as she knows how, and 

 she is cursed with a profane or perverse fam- 

 ily who severally drop down into iheir seats at 

 irregular periods — from sheer habits of self- 

 indulgence — and then irreverently "bolt" 

 their food and hasten away again, without a 

 recognition of the wants of anybody outside 

 of themselves, if she possesses those refined 

 sc nsibilities which are so essentially the dis- 

 1 iiiguishing characteristics of a true woman, 

 sill' must regret that she diil not cultivate and 

 inculcate these iiriueiples when her children 

 were young. 



It is true, that many women — perhaps most 

 of them — are constantly burdened with do- 

 mestic labors, and so constantly "behind 

 time" with their work; that they have little 

 opportunity to practice tidiness, and there- 

 fore they ""rough it" through in the most 

 "shilly shally" kind of way, and pay little at- 

 tention to doniestic order, and especially ta- 

 ble order. But, this state of things is more 

 the result of misconception, shiftlessness and 

 illiteracy, than of fwt. They fail to make a 

 proper discrimination between essentials and 

 non-essentials. The meal is often deferred, 

 half an hour perhaps; without any compunc- 

 tion whatever, merely because it is fancied 

 that there is something else that ought to 

 claim their first attention. Nothing would 

 disgust a family of lioarders more — esjiecially 

 if tliey were eini)loyed by tht^ day, and had a 

 specific period allowed for the consumption of 

 their meals— than such a wanton delay. Are 

 our obligations to our families less imperative 

 than they are to those wlio are total stran- 

 gers 'i—Ed. 



NEWSPAPER-MAKING. 



It isn't boy's play, reader, to make a news- 

 paper. Everyl)()dy can't do it, although most 

 people think they "can. Jlore excellent quali- 

 ties of head and heart are recpiired in an edi- 

 tor than in any other calling or profession in 

 the world. lie talks to more people than the 

 pulpit does, and talks to peojile of all grades 

 of life and of all shades of belief. If con- 



scientious — and no man who is not has any 

 business in the editorial chair— be feels the 

 responsibility of his jiosition as if it were a 

 inonntain on his soul. He knows that the 

 welfare, moral growth and peace of the com- 

 munity deiiend largely upon his daily or weekly 

 utterances. Many times does he draw his pen 

 through lines which express his sentiments, 

 but which he fears may be misunderstood, and 

 do harm to some of those whom he desires to 

 make better, and not wor.se. 11 is not an easy 

 position — it is scarcely a desirable one ; and 

 yet, if he happens to express a sentiment which 

 iloes not suit the reader, the latter is uncharit- 

 able enough to lose no time in censuring him. 

 The editiu- does not always think as the reader 

 does ; he can't. If he did, and never expressed 

 a sentiment except such as the reader cher- 

 ished, what would be the object of taking his 

 paper y It is certainly foolish to pay for a 

 journal which simply contains a rehash of what 

 we have long before thought of ourselves. 

 But, reader, when you are induced to find 

 fault with the editor" because he says something 

 that doesn't suit you, remember that you can't 

 get a paper under the sun, if it amounts to 

 anything, that will not sometimes say things 

 that you cannot agree with. — Weslern Rural. 

 The above, from the Rural, is so well and 

 .so appropriately said, that we can find but 

 little to add ; and yet it does not recount one- 

 half of the responsibilities which rest upon the 

 head and heart of an editor. Even if hi^ did 

 not write a line of original matter, there are 

 onerous laliors attached to his function, of 

 which the outside world has very little know- 

 ledge or appreciation. The labor of looking 

 ove'r two or three scores of exchanges and 

 culling therefrom what may be best adapted 

 to the localities of the greatest numlier of his 

 readers, involves more time and research, by 

 far, than is occupied in writing original papers ; 

 and when he thinks he has catered to the high- 

 est and most substantial interests of his pat- 

 rons, some trivial objection will be made by 

 the superficial or morbidly critical reader. 

 Somebody has said, " the man who attempts 

 to please" everybody is a fool"— and perhaps 

 there is no sphere in which the folly of such an 

 attempt would become more manifest than in 

 that of an editor, however desirable such an 

 end might be. — Ed. 



STRANGE SUBSTANCES IN A HORSE'S 

 STOMACH. 



Sonn^what over a year ago Mr. Henry Ben- 

 ncthuni, stove dealer, of Reading, was com- 

 pelled to kill a horse, which had been under 

 medical treatment for some time, suffering 

 with an unknown disease. A post-mortem 

 examination was made, and there was found 

 in the stomach and intestines of the animal a 

 number of stones of different shapes, of a cal- 

 careous nature, and exceedingly hard, which 

 had been worn smooth and become highly 

 polished by constant attrition. How the 

 stones came there was a subject of much con- 

 jecture. By manv it was sujiposed that they 

 had been mixed "with the hay or feed and 

 swallowed by the animal accidentally. The 

 composition of the stones, however, exploded 

 that theory and the matter remained as mucli 

 of a mystery as ever 



More recently about a peck of stones, of the 

 size of turnips, bearing a close resemblance to 

 that vegetable, were found in the intestines of 

 a horse by Mr. Daniel Levan, city scavenger, 

 of Reading. These were supposed by some to 

 have been petrified turnips, although a subse- 

 (luent examination of them showed, that they 

 must have formed inside of the stomach in 

 small lumi)s which gradually increased, hard- 

 ened, and finally found their way into the in- 

 testines causing death. To show that these 

 phenomena are not the only ones of the kind 

 that have been discovered in this country, we 

 reproduce the following taken from the Troy 

 (iV". Y.) Press: 



.John Brown, superintendent of the Troy 

 and Lansingburg horse railroad, has in his 

 possession two specimens of natural phenome- 

 na which our scientists would do well to ex- 



amine, and, if possible, render some lucid ex- 

 planation of. 



One is a large round stone liaving the apjiear- 

 anee of a highly polished piece of marble mot- 

 tled in a))p(tarance and b(,'autiful in color. It 

 is as hard as Hint, and exceedingly dillicult to 

 scratch or mar in any wav, and weighs one 

 and one-half pounds, 'fhis was taken 

 from the intestines of a horse that died some 

 time ago, and is probably formed from secre- 

 tions of dirt and dust that had gathered in 

 the stomach of the animal and which by tlie 

 process of time had become formed and hard- 

 I'lied into this beautiful seinhlance of i)olished 

 marble. It had jias.sed from the stomach, and 

 in itsfiassage through the intestinal channels 

 had lodged an<l caused the animal's death. 

 Another, more singular still in its shape and 

 formation, was taken from the intestines of a 

 horse that (lied at Cohoeslast week. This cu- 

 riosity is as large as a man's clenched fist, and 

 has the appearance of a calcerous substance. 

 In size, shape, and general appearance it re- 

 sembles a i)etritied sponge. This also caused 

 the aninial's death in the .same manner as the 

 preceding. The only theory advanced thus 

 far in the explanation of this stone is, that at 

 some time the horse had swallowed a piece of 

 sponge, and it had laid in His stomach and in 

 time had petrified. 



We are sometimes surprised, when we read 

 such notices as the above— not at the phenom- 

 ena, however, but at the great wonder mani- 

 fested at them, just "for all the world" as if 

 such things had never occurred before. As 

 early as 18:!8 we had the half of one of these 

 concretions in our coUectiim of curiosities, 

 which had been taken out of the .stomach or 

 intestines of a horse. A horse had died in 

 Donegal township, out of which three or four 

 were taken, about the size of goose eggs, and 

 tw-o of them came into the posse.ssion of an 

 intimate friend, who sawed one of them trans- 

 versely through and presented us with one- 

 half of it. These were almost spherical in 

 form, and the outer surface was quite smooth. 

 The face of the transverse section exhibited a 

 series of concentric layers, something like 

 would be the appearance of an onion, cut 

 horizontally through. In the centre was a 

 hollow cavity which contained several crushed 

 oat grains. ' These seemed to be a nucleus 

 arouiid which the substance that composed 

 them seemed to be deposited in concentric 

 layers, the result, probably, of a number of 

 years. They were almost as hard as a marble 

 when they became perfectly dry; and they ef- 

 fervesced" very freely, as 'if they were com- 

 posed of a large proportion of the carbonate of 

 lime; and I think this was the baseof thesub- 

 stance. In color, they were something like 

 clay, faintly tinged w"ith blue. AVe gave it 

 away many years Ago.— Editor. 



THE DANGEROUS AND TERRIBLE 



QUAIL.* 

 Each pair of quails produce an average of 

 ten chicks per year— many, in favorable sea- 

 sons, hatch out "sixteen in a brood, and then 

 hatch a second brood. If we estimate only 

 the small number of 500,000 quails in Indiana 

 to start with (though there are probably ten 

 times that number), and take ten per year as 

 the produce of each pair, the figures will 

 sinifily be stupendous, and we present them to 

 the Indiana Legislature for consideration : 



First year, total S,00n,000 



•Second year, total 1S,0<IO,000 



Third year, total '^^'2?2'^ 



Fourth year, total ?***' „?'??? 



Fifth ye'ar, total 3R,8*«,000,000 



We would have to station an army along the 

 Ohio river to prevent an invasion of Kentucky 

 after these birds had eaten everything visible 

 in Indiana. There wouldn"t be a bug left in 

 that state, and the birds would require grain to 

 five upon. Estimating a gill of irrain per day 

 for each bird, it would require 1.->,00U,(IU0 bush- 

 els per day to feed them. We enter our protest 

 in advance, and shall demand, if Indiana does 

 not pass the law, that the state shall raise the 



•From a Speech by Senator Harris in the Senate of lo- 

 diana. 



