176 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



ENOLISH WOMEN. 



I have heard a good deal of the tenacity with 

 ■which English ladies retain their personal beauty 

 to a late period of life ; but (not to suggest that 

 an American eye needs use and cultivation before 

 it can quite appreciate the charm of English beau- 

 ty at any age) it strikes me that an English lady 

 of fifty is apt to become a creature less refined 

 and delicate, so far as her physique goes, than 

 anything that we western peo{)le class under the 

 name of woman. She has an awful ponderosity 

 of frame, not pulpy, like the looser development 

 of our few fat women, but massive with solid beef 

 and streaky tallow ; so that (though struggling 

 manfully against the idea) you inevitably think 

 of her as made up of steaks and sirloins. When 

 she walks, her advance is elephantine. When she 

 sits down, it is on a great round space of her 

 Maker's footstool, where she looks as if nothing 

 could ever move her. She imposes awe and re- 

 spect by the muchness of her personality, to such 

 a degree that you probably credit her with far 

 greater moral and intellectual force than she can 

 fairly claim. Her visage is usually grim and stern, 

 not always positively forbidding, yet calmly terri- 

 ble, not merely by its breadth and weight of fea- 

 ture, but because it seems to express so much well 

 founded self-reliance, such acquaintance with the 

 world, its toils, troubles, and dangers, and such 

 sturdy capacity for trampling down a foe. With- 

 out anything positively salient, or actively offen- 

 sive, or, indeed, unjustly formidable to her neigh- 

 bors, she has the effect of a seventy-four gunship 

 in time of peace ; for, while you assure yourself 

 that there is no real danger, you cannot help think- 

 ing how tremendous would be her onset if pugna- 

 ciously inclined, and how futile the effort to in- 

 flict any counter injury. She certainly looks ten- 

 fold — nay, a hundred-fold — better able to take 

 care of herself than our slender-framed and hag- 

 gard womankind ; but I have not found reason 

 to suppose that the English dowager of fifty has 

 actually greater courage, fortitude and strength of 

 character than our women of similar age, or even 

 a tougher physical endurance than they. Moral- 

 ly, she is strong, I suspect, only in society, and in 

 the common routine of social affairs, and would 

 be found powerless and timid in any exceptional 

 strait that might call for energy outside of the 

 conventionalities amid which she has grown up. 



You can meet this figure in the street, and live, 

 and even smile at the recollection. But conceive 

 of her in a ball-room, with the bare, brawny arms 

 that she invariably displays there, and all the oth- 

 er corresponding development, such as is beauti- 

 ful in the maiden blossom, but a spectacle to howl 

 at in such an overblown cabbage rose as this. 



Yet, somewhere in this enormous bulk, there 

 must be hidden the modest, slender, violet nature 

 of a girl, whom an alien mass of earthliness has 

 unkindly overgrown ; for an English maiden in 

 her teens, though very seldom so pretty as our 

 own damsels, possesses, to say the trnth, a certain 

 charm of half-blossom, and dehcately folded leaves, 

 and tender womanhood shielded by maidenly re- 

 serve, with which, somehow or other, our Amer- 

 ican girls often fail to adorn themselves during an 

 appreciable moment. It is a pity that the English 

 violet should grow into such an outrageously de- 

 veloped peony as I have attempted to describe. 

 I wonder whether a middle-aged husband ought 



to be considered as legally married to all the ac- 

 cretions that have overgrown the slenderness of 

 his bride, since he led her to the altar, and which 

 make her so much more than he ever bargained 

 for ! Is it not a sounder view of the case, that 

 the matrimonial bond cannot be held to include 

 the three-fourths of the wife that had no existence 

 when the ceremony was performed ? And as a 

 matter of conscience and good morals, ought not 

 an English married pair to insist upon the cele- 

 bration of a silver wedding at the end of twenty- 

 five years, in order to legalize and mutually ap- 

 propriate that corporeal growth of which both 

 parties have individually come into possession 

 since they were pronounced one flesh ? — Nathan- 

 id Hawthorne. 



THE TOMATO. 



Few persons now are willing to dispense with 

 the tomato. It is surprising how quickly it found 

 its way into public favor. It is palatable, and 

 wholesome, we believe, before it is ripe, as well as 

 afterwards, and is easily preserved in various 

 forms, so that it can be in use throughout the en- 

 tire year. It contains a peculiar acid highly rel- 

 ished by most persons, and which seems to act 

 favwrably upon the system. It is a universal fa- 

 vorite. The beautiful illustrations which we in- 

 troduce are from Buiiu's Book on Fidd and Gar- 

 den Vegetables. He says : 



As early in May as the weather is suitable, the 

 plants may be set in the open ground where they 

 are to remain, and should be three feet apart in 

 each direction ; or, if against a wall or trellis, 

 three feet from plant to plant. Water freely at 

 the time of transplanting, shelter from the sun for 

 a few days or until they are well established, and 

 cultivate in the usual form during summer. 



If sown in the open ground, select a sheltered 

 situation, pulverize the soU finely, and sow a few 



