476 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



the sashes and doors, what the painters call 

 bronze-green. Two coats, at intervals of a few 

 days, have thoroughly done the work, making an 

 improvement delightful to the eyes of us all who 

 feel an interest in the homestead. The best and 

 most economical way to preserve a house, is to 

 paint it, say, over once in three or four years, but 

 this is not always convenient, and most of us are 

 obliged to do as we can, and not as we would, 

 and to atone for past neglect by additional pres- 

 ent expenditure. 



While upon the subject of painting, I will add 

 a suggestion to those who contemplate building 

 good houses, and that is, to finish their best 

 rooms, if not the whole house, with wood in its 

 natural color unpainted, but merely oiled. We 

 pay from four to five cents per foot for the best 

 pine for inside finish, and the charge for three 

 coats of paint is about two cents per foot, making 

 six or seven cents per foot for the wood and paint- 

 ing. Now, black walnut is sold at six or seven 

 cents per foot, and it is an easy wood to work, 

 and once finished, it would require no expense to 

 preserve it handsome forever. Chestnut is now 

 used in Boston, for banks and offices, as well as 

 for furniture, and makes a beautiful finish. Bass 

 and white wood, and even white pine, with a coat 

 of varnish, are all handsome, soft woods. The 

 common oil-nut is a soft, but handsome wood, 

 and the maples and birches are beautiful, though 

 hai'd to work. When it is considered that it costs 

 from fifteen to eighteen cents per square yard for 

 all the painted work well done inside a house, it 

 is worth considering whether good taste and econ- 

 omy may not both be promoted by using woods 

 in their natural colors, and dispensing with much 

 of our inside paint. Asking pardon of the reader 

 for so much "easy writing," which Charles Lamb 

 says "is usually very hard reading," 

 I remain your friend, 



Henry F. French. 



MANNERS AND LIVINQ IN 1760. 

 The undress of both sexes was often coarse and 

 slovenly beyond any example, even among the 

 lower orders in modern days. Gentlemen used 

 to walk about all the morning in greasy night- 

 caps and dirty night-gowns (dressing-gowns) or 

 threadbare coats. The elder ladies wore large 

 linen caps called toys, encroaching on the face, 

 and tied under the chin, with worsted short gowns 

 and aprons. The word toy is probably derived 

 from the French toque, the hood worn by women 

 of mean condition in France. The clergy in my 

 early life were not less slovenly than their neigh- 

 bors. Many of them wore colored clothes of very 

 coarse materials. Blue was the common color 

 for full dress among persons of my own profession 

 in Scotland at that time. Butcher's meat was 

 rarely eaten by laborers and servants, except in 

 the houses of stock farmers, who found their ac- 

 count in consuming at home that part of their 



stock which was unfit for sale. There was no reg- 

 ular butcher market except in towns and the 

 larger villages, and the articles brought to market 

 consisted chiefly of mutton, lamb and veal. Even 

 in principal towns beef was seldom to be had in 

 the market, except, perhaps, on the occasion of 

 fairs, or the country meetings, which brought to- 

 gether a number of country gentlemen, and usu- 

 ally ended in conviviality. — Somerville's Life and 

 Times, (1741-1814.) 



FAEEWELL, SUMMER. 



Sounds are in the earth and ether, 



Sob3 and murmurs half-divine ; 



Blast3 beyond man's puny power 



Rock the branches of the pine. 



The summer past, what dreams are over ! 



The incense of the air hath fled : 



The carpets of the golden meadows 



Are torn by tempests, shred by shred : 



The rose hath lost her fragrance ; 



The lily hangs her head, — 



Dead, — dead ! Baert CobiTWAU. 



■WORK AND PLAY. 



Recreation can be fully enjoyed only by a man 

 who has some honest occupation. The end of the 

 work is to enjoy leisure ; but to enjoy leisure, 

 you must have gone through work. Play-time 

 must come after school-time, otherwise it loses 

 its savor. Play, after all, is a relative thing ; it 

 is not a thing which has an absolute existence. 

 There is no such thing as play, except to the 

 worker. It comes out by contrast. Put white 

 upon white, and you can hardly see it ; put white 

 upon black, and how bright it is ! Light your 

 lamp in the sunshine, and it is nothing ; you must 

 have dark around to make its presence felt. 



And besides this, the greater part of the enjoy- 

 ment of recreation consists in the feeling that we 

 have earned it by previous hard work. One goes 

 out for the afternoon walk with a light heart, 

 when one has done a good task since breakfast. 

 It is one thing for a dawdling idler to set off to 

 the continent, or to the Highland, just because he 

 was sick of every thing around him ; and quite 

 another when a hard-wrought man, who is of 

 some use in life, sets off" as gay as a lark, with the 

 pleasant feeling that he has brought some work 

 to an end, on that self-same tour. 



And then a busy man finds a relish in simple 

 recreations ; while a man who has nothing to do 

 finds all things wearisome, and thinks that life is 

 "used up ;" it takes something quite out of the 

 way to tickle that indurated palate ; you might as 

 well prick the hide of a hippopotamus with a nee- 

 dle, as to excite the interest of that blase being 

 by any amusement which is not spiced with the 

 cayenne of vice. And that certainly has a pow- 

 erful effect. It was a glass of water the wicked 

 old French woman was drinking, when she said, 

 "O ! that this were a sin, to give it a relish !" — 

 Recreations of a Country Parson. 



To Make Hens Lay. — I send you a good re- 

 cipe for making hens lay : — Take some oats and 

 boil them until soft ; then fry them in hot fat, 

 and you will have any quantity of eggs. — Prairie 

 Farmer. 



