296 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



and other seeds about the floor, and around the 

 cattle. 



Fowls dislike damp places, and the cellar, though 

 warmer than rooms above, is not so good as a 

 loft would be, where the sun could come in through 

 windows in the roof, and which might be warmed 

 in the coldest weather from a stove below. They 

 require steady attention and care, and when they 

 receive it, will afford as much profit for the out- 

 lay as any item of the farm. 



LADIES' DEPARTMENT. 



MAY-BE, KTOT FOB YOU? 

 A connubial little sermon, from the text "Be 

 happy as you are,"' is thus preached by a contem- 

 porary print : 



"Wife and mother, are you tired and out of 

 patience with your husband's and your children's 

 demands upon your time and attention ? Are you 

 tempted to speak out angry ■ieelings to that faith- 

 ful, but, perhaps, sometimes heedless or exacting 

 husband of yours ? or to scold and fret at those 

 sweet and beautiful ones ? Do you groan and say, 

 'What a fool I Mas to marry, and leave my fath- 

 er's house, where I lived at ease and in quiet ?' 

 Are you, by reason of the care and weariness of 

 body which wifehood and motherhood must bring, 

 forgetful of, and ungrateful for, their comforts and 

 their joys ? O ! wife and mother, what if a stroke 

 should smite your husband and lay him low ? 

 What if your children should be snatched from 

 your arms and from your bosom ? What if there 

 were no true, strong heart for you to lean upon ? 

 What if there were no soft little innocents to nes- 

 tle in your bosom, and to love you or receive your 

 love ? How would it be with you then ? Be pa- 

 tient and kind, dear wife : be unwearying and 

 long-suffering, dear mother ; for you know not 

 how long you may have with you your best and 

 dearest treasures — you know not how long you 

 may tarry with them. Let there be nothing for 

 you to remember which will wring your heart with 

 remorse if they leave you alone ; let there be 

 nothing for them to remember but sweetness and 

 love unutterable, if you are called to leave them 

 by the way. Be patient, be pitiful, be tender of 

 them all, for death will step sooner or later be- 

 tween them and you. And O ! what would you 

 do if you should be doomed to sit solitary and 

 forsaken through years and years ? Be happy as 

 you are, even with all your trials ; for, believe it, 

 thou wife of a loving and true husband, there is no 

 lot in life so blessed as thine own." 



Restoring Damaged Velvet. — The Monitor 

 de la Salud publishes the following method of re- 

 storing velvet to its original condition. It is well 

 known that when velvet has been wet, not only 

 its appearance is spoiled, but it becomes hard and 

 knotty. To restore its original softness, it must 

 be thoroughly damped on the wrong side, and 

 then held over a very hot iron, care being taken 

 not to let it touch the latter. In a short time, the 

 velvet becomes, as it were, new again. The theo- 



ry of this is very simple. The heat of the iron 

 evaporates the water through the tissue, and for- 

 ces the vapor out at the upper side ; this vapor 

 passing between the different fibres separates 

 those which adhere together in hard bunches. If 

 the velvet were ironed after damping, an exactly 

 opposite result would be be obtained ; it is, there- 

 fore, necessary that the substance should not come 

 in contact with the heated iron. 



"WOMAN'S EMPLOYMENT CHANGED. 



Within the course of the last few years, two 

 immense events have changed the lot of Europe- 

 an women. Woman has only two grand trades to 

 follow, spinning and sewing. The others (em- 

 broidery, flower-making, &c., are hardly worth 

 reckoning. Woman is a spinster, woman is a 

 seamstress. That is her work in all ages ; that is 

 her universal history. Well, such is no longer 

 the case : a change has lately taken place. First- 

 ly, flax-spinning by machinery has suppressed 

 the spinster. It is not her wages only, that she 

 has thereby lost, but a whole world of habitudes. 

 The peasant woman used to spin, as she attended 

 to her children and her cookery. She spun at Avin- 

 ter evening meetings. She spun as she walked, 

 grazing her cow or her sheep. The seamstress 

 was the workwoman of towns. She worked at 

 home, either continually, or alternating her work 

 with domestic duties. For any important under- 

 taking, this state of things has ceased to exist. In 

 the first place, prisons and convents offered a ter- 

 rible competition with the isolated workwoman ; 

 and now, the sewing machine annihilates her. 

 The increasing employment of these two ma- 

 chines, the cheapness and perfection of their 

 work, will force their products into every market, 

 in spite of every obstacle. There is nothing to be 

 said against the machines, nothing to be done. 

 These grand inventions are, in the end, and in the 

 totality of their effects, a benefit to the human 

 race. But these effects are cruel during the mo- 

 ments of transition. — Dickens's "All the Year 

 Bound." 



Sewing on Black Cloth. — To remedy the 

 difficulty which persons with defective eyes expe- 

 rience when sewing on black cloth at night, the 

 Scientific American directs : Pin or baste a strip 

 of white paper on the seam of black cloth to be 

 operated upon, then sew through the paper and 

 cloth, and when the seam is completed the paper 

 may be torn off. The black thread will be dis- 

 tinctly seen on the white paper, and drawing the 

 stitches a little tighter than usual, good work will 

 be produced. This method is well adapted for 

 sewing by machinery as well as by hand. 



The Old INIaid without a Disappointment. 

 — There is something touching in the lot of a wo- 

 man who has courageously got over an early dis- 

 appointment, and who sets herself to do good in 

 her generation, and give her neighbors as much 

 happiness as she can. But although there are old 

 maids whose disa])pointment is in this noble way, 

 there are other old maids whose disappointment 

 consists in never having had any disappointment 

 to bear ; and this is a trial which, at one period 

 of life, is hard to endure, and ought to awaken 

 more sympathy than it does. 



