S32 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



HJomcstic UJcpartmcnt. 



Pi,\i.\ Ai)Vi*E TO CouNTKY GiELs. — You know 

 I said that I could quilt almost as fast as two of you. 

 The reason is, I take care of my hands. One half 

 of you are too proud to do this. You would not bo 

 cauuht putting a glove on to sweep, or hoe, or weed 

 in the garden, boc;ause you think it would look as if 

 you wanted to be fine ladies. If you sec any one 

 taking care of her hands or careful to wear a sun- 

 bonnet to ];rcscrve her complexion, you say she is 

 " proud and stuck up." But it is you who are 

 proud — too proud to think you require any care to 

 look nice. You have an idea you look well enough 

 at any rate. So you just make yourself as rough 

 and coarse as ever you can, by way of being inde- 

 pendent. Your hands grow as stiff and hard as if 

 you held a plough and swun j: a scythe ; and when you 

 take a needle, j'ou can scarcely feel it in your fingers. 

 This is wrong. There are many things which women 

 ought to do, which require their hands to be soft 

 and i)liablc, and they should be careful to keep them 

 BO, in order to make them useful. Every woman 

 who lives in the country should knit herself a pair 

 of woollen gloves, with long fingers closed at the 

 tojjs — no mits, to let the fingers get hard. There 

 should be a piece of ribbed work at the wrist, to make 

 them stay on. 



When you use your hoc, rake, or broom, put on 

 yovxr gloves — when you take hold of a skillet, pot, 

 or kettle handle, take a cloth to keep your hands 

 from being seared and hardened. When you wash 

 clothes or dishes, do not have water so hot as to feel 

 unpleasant. >Iany girls scald their hands until they 

 can put them into water almost boiling. Such hands 

 are uniit to use a needle or a pin. They are not so 

 good to hold a baby or dress a wound. Take care 

 of your hands, and do not forget your faces. I have 

 Been so many country girls, who, at sixteen, had com- 

 plexions like alabaster, and at twenty-six their faces 

 would look like a runnet bag that hung six weeks in 

 the chimney corner. One reason of this is, thej"- do 

 not wear a bonnet to protect them from the sun. 

 Another reason is, the habit they have of baking 

 their faces before a wood fire. I have seen women 

 Stand b fore a great roasting fire, and cook, until I 

 thought their brains were as well stewed as the 

 chickens ; and they woxrld get so used to it, they 

 would make no attempt to shield their heads from 

 the heat. Nay, they would sit down in the evening, 

 and bake their faces by the hour ; and this is one of 

 the reasons why Amez^ican women grow old, withered, 

 and wrinkled, fifteen years before their time. 



But another and the greatest reason is, your diet. 

 People in this country live too well, and eat too much 

 hot bread and meat. Country people usually eat 

 richer food than these who live in the cities, and that 

 is a reason why, with all their fresh air, their average 

 age is little greater than that of city filks. Thou- 

 Bands of beautiful, blooming countrj' girls make old, 

 Ballow-faced women of themselves before they are 

 thirty, by drinkinij coffee, smoking tobacco, and eat- 

 ing hit bread. They shorten thoir lives by these 

 practices about as much as city ladies with their 

 fashionable follies. I do not know what rjoii think 

 about it, girls, but I think it is about as much a sin 

 for women to get old, brown, withered faces, by eat- 

 ing too much, as it is for men to got red noses by 

 drinking too much. Very few people think it a dis- 

 grace to have a bilious fever ; but I would just as 

 lief the doctor would tell me that I was drunk as 

 that I was bilious. The one would come from 

 drinking too much, the other from eating too much ; 

 and where is the difference ? All this is a very 

 Berious matter, for it aff'ects health and life ; and the 

 reason why I talk about your complexion in speaking 



of it, is, that every body loves to look well, whether 

 they will acknowledge it or not. Now, people cannot 

 look well unless theij are well ; and no one can be 

 well very long Avho docs not try to take care of her- 

 self. The woman who roasts her head at the fire, 

 disorders her blood, brings on headaches, injures her 

 health, and makes her face look like a piece of 

 leather ; when she swallows hot cott'ee, hot bread, 

 greasy victuals and strong pickles, she destroys her 

 stomach, rots her teeth, shortens her life, and make* 

 herself too ugly for any use, except scaring the crows 

 off the corn. ' J. G. S. 



— Ohio Cultivator. 



Lady Architects. — The daughters of General 

 Simco, says the " Builder," an English journal, on 

 the ruins of the old abbey. Dunkswell, near Iloniton, 

 have erected a church for which they worked all the 

 stone with their own hands. The same journal adds, 

 " We have a worthy companion for these ladies, 

 whose name is Miss Rickards, of Stow liangtoft, 

 Bury, who has, with her own hands, glazed all the 

 windows in her father's church with stained glass, 

 painted and burnt by herself. 



Soda Coffee. — The flavor of coffefe may be very 

 much improved, by adding forty or fifty grains of 

 carbonate of soda to each pound of roa.sted coffee. 

 In addition to improving the flavor, the soda makes 

 the cott'co more wholesome, as it neutralizes the acid 

 contained in the infusion. 



Bops' Jllcpartmcnt. 



The Redhreast. — Though the redbreast is gen- 

 erally admired for his song, he is still more admired 

 for his attachment to and confidence in mankind. 

 In all countries, he is a favorite, and has what may 

 be called a pot name. The inhabitants of Bornholra 

 call him Tammi Liden, the Norwegians, Peter Rons- 

 ined, the Germans, Thomas Gierdct, and in England 

 he is known as Robin Redbreast, or by the still more 

 familiar appellation of Bob. Buffon describes, with 

 his usual elegance, the winter manners of this bird. 

 •' In that season," says he, " they visit our dwellings 

 and sock the warmest and most sheltered situations ; 

 and if any one happens still to continue in the woods, 

 it becomes the companion of the fagot-maker, cher- 

 ishes itself at his fire, pecks at his bread, and flut- 

 ters the whole day round him, chirping its slender 

 pip. But when the cold grows more severe, and 

 thick snow covers the ground, it approaches our 

 houses, and taps at the windows with its bill, as if 

 to entreat an asylum, which is cheerfully granted ; 

 and it repays the favor by the most amiable famil- 

 iarity, gathering the crumbs from the table, distin- 

 guishing affectionately the people of the house, and 

 assuming a warble, not indeed so rich as that in the 

 spring, but more delicate. This it retains through', 

 all the rigors of the season, to hail each day the 

 kindness of its host, and the sweetness of its retreat." 

 The bill of the robin is slender and delicate ; its ej'e'* 

 are large, dark, and expressive, and its aspect mild ; 

 its head and all the upper parts of its body are brown, 

 tinged with a greenish olive ; the neck and breast 

 are of a fine deep reddish orange ; a spot of the color 

 marks its forehead ; its belly is whitish, and the legs 

 and feet of a dusky black. It is near six inches in 

 length, from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail ; 

 the former being about half an inch, and the latter 

 two inches and a half. 



This bird, in England, has the sweetest song of 

 all the feathered tribe : the notes of other birds are. 



