1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



391 



PAWNY FBRNT ON SON"S-IN--I.A"W. 



Fani.'v Fern, having lost her eldest daughter in 

 marriage, makes the following reflection, by her 

 rather sigivficant. When she penned them Doe* 

 sticks had probably just declared his intentions : 



"How any young fellow can have the face to 

 ■walk into your family, and deliberately ask for 

 one of your daughters, surprises me. That it is 

 done every day does not lessen my astonishment 

 at the sublime impudence of the thing. There 

 you have been, eighteen or twenty years of her 

 life, combing her hair and washing her face for — 

 Jiim ! It is lucky the thought never strikes you 

 •while you are doing it, that this is to be the end 

 of all. AVhat if you were married yourself? that 

 is no reason why she should be witched away in- 

 to a separate establishment just as you begin to 

 lean upon her, and feel proud of her ; or, at least, 

 it stands to reason that after you have worried 

 her through the measles, the chicken-pox, scarlet 

 fever and whooping cough, and had her properly 

 baptized and vaccinated, this young man might 

 give you a short breathing time before she goes. 

 He seems to be of a different opinion ; he not 

 only insists upon taking her, but upon taking her 

 immediately, if not sooner. He talks well about 

 it — very well ; you have no objection to him, not 

 the least in the world, except that when the world 

 is full of girls, why couldn't he fixed his eye on 

 the daughter of somebody else ? There are some 

 parents who are glad to be rid of their daughters. 

 Blue eyes are as plentiful as berries ; why need it 

 be this particular pair ? Isn't she happy enough 

 as she is ? Don't she have meat, and bread, and 

 clothes enough, to say nothing of love ? What 

 is the use of leaving a certainty for an uncertain- 

 ty, when that certainty is a mother, and you can 

 never have but one ? You put all these questions 

 to her, and she has the sauciness to ask if that is 

 the way you reasoned when father came for you. 

 You disdain to answer, of course ; it is a mean 

 dodging of the question. But she gets round you, 

 for all that ; and so does he, too, though you try 

 your best not to like him ; and with a 'Well, if I 

 must, I must,' you just order her wedding clothes, 

 muttering to yourself the while, 'Dear, dear, what 

 sort of a fist will that child make at the head of a 

 house ? How will she ever know what to do in 

 this, that, or the other emergency ! — she who is 

 calling on 'mother' fifty times a day, to settle 

 every trifling question ! what folly for her to set 

 up house for herself!' How many mothers have 

 had these foreboding thoughts over a daughter ! 

 And yet that daughter has met life, and its unex- 

 pected reverses, with a heroism and courage as un- 

 daunted as if every girlish tear had not been 

 kissed away by lips that, alas ! may be dust, when 

 the baptism and womanhood comes upon her." 



The New Floral Beauty.— The new pink, 

 dianthus Heddewigi, which took the prize, as the 

 finest floral novelty, at European exhibitions last 

 year, is now being very extensively grown in this 

 country. Considerable quantities of the seed 

 have been imported, and almost all of the promi- 

 nent florists now have the young plants on sale. 

 It is easily raised from the seed, and is a strong 

 and vigorous grower. The flowers are said to be 



beautiful beyond description. They are nearly 

 three times larger than other pinks, are of rose, 

 crimson and violet colors, with some delicate 

 marble shades, white and mottled flakes. The 

 plant grows to a foot in height, is covered with a 

 profusion of flowers, and presents a most magnif- 

 icent appearance. The flower is named after its 

 introducer, a Russian gardener. 



LAVBNDBE, -WATER. 



The following recipe for the manufacture of 

 lavender water is given by Mr. Piesse in his Sci- 

 entific Melange for Young People : 



•'The flowers must be gathered, with as little 

 stalk as possible, then place them in a jar three 

 parts full of sweet olive or almond oil ; after the 

 floAvers have been in the oil from twelve to twen- 

 ty-four hours, the whole must be put into a coarse 

 cloth, and the oil forcibly squeezed from them, 

 then fresh flowers must be added, and this pro- 

 cess repeated for twelve days, according to the 

 strength of the perfume desired. When the odor 

 of only one flower is required, an incredible quan- 

 tity of flowers are necessary to produce a scented 

 oil, and for that purpose they would require spe- 

 cial cultivation. 



In England no less than about 270 acres of ita 

 precious land is devoted to lavender farming. 

 Each acre yields say 6200 pounds of flowers. 

 A 100 pounds of flowers give up by distillation 

 about one pound of the otto of lavender ; and 

 thus we learn that there is an averge production 

 of 7000 pounds of lavender otto annually. It re- 

 quires six ounces of this to make a gallon of lav- 

 ender water, so that Britannia and her children — 

 you know their names, Jamaica, Canada, Austra- 

 lia — together with a few visitors, America, Ger- 

 many and Russia, use, and take home with them 

 the enormous quantity of 17,000 gallons of this 

 favorite spirit. The lavender farms of England 

 are situated at Mitcham in Surrey* and at Hitch- 

 ing in Hertfordshire. At Mr. Perk's farm, of 

 the latter place, the lavender when in blossom is 

 resorted to by all the bees for miles round. The 

 sound of their hum in such vast numbers is quite 

 enchanting ; nor do the butterflies neglect to vis- 

 it so luxurious a feast, the taste of which appears 

 to be particularly grateful to them. The beea^ 

 love for the lavender is so excessive, that at the 

 harvest time, as the sprays fall before the sickle 

 and are tied up into sheaves, they will follow it 

 even at a sacrifice of life into the boiling still." 



How THE Japanese Restore Faded Flow- 

 ers. — After a bouquet is di'ooping beyond all 

 remedies of fresh water, the Japanese can bring it 

 back to all its first glory by a simple and seem- 

 ingly most destructive operation. A writer at 

 Nagasaki says : I had received some few days ago 

 a delightful bunch of flowers from a Japanese ac- 

 quaintance. They continued to live in their beau- 

 ty for nearly two weeks, when at last they faded. 

 Just as I was about to throw them away, the same 

 gentleman (Japanese) came to see me. I showed 

 him the faded flowers, and told him that, though 

 lasting a long time, they had become useless. "O 

 no," said he, "only put the ends of the stems in- 



