ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 85 



WINTER NIGHTS FOR READING. 



As the winter is a season of comparative leisure, it is the 

 time for farmers to study. It is a good time for them to 

 make themselves acquainted with the nature of soils, of 

 manures, of vegetable organization or structural botany. 

 Farmers are liable to rely wholly upon their own experi- 

 ence, and to despise science. Book-men are apt to rely on 

 scientific theories, and nothing upon practice. If these 

 two tendencies would only court and marry each other, 

 what a hopeful family would they rear ! How nice it would 

 look to see in the papers : 



MARRIED. By Philosophical Wisdom, Esq., Mr. Prac- 

 tical Experience, to Miss Sober Science. [We will stand 

 godfather to all the children.] 



FEATHERS. 



THE quality of feathers depends on their strength, elasti- 

 city and cleanness ; and these, again, depend upon the condi- 

 tion of the bird, its health, food, and the time of plucking 

 its feathers. Down is the term applied to under-feaihers 

 most abundant in water fowl, and in those especially which 

 live in cold latitudes, being designed to protect them from 

 wet and cold. The eider-down, from the eider-duck, is of 

 the most repute. It is brought from extreme northern 

 latitudes, and is used for coverings to beds, rather than for 

 beds themselves, as, by being slept upon, it loses its elasti- 

 city. 



Poultry feathers, as those of turkeys, ducks, and chick- 

 ens, if assorted and the coarse ones rejected, afford very 

 good beds ; but they are not so elastic as geese-feathers. 



