1871 ] 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



155 



at the same time, are reported at (100,000 

 head. In 1802 thoy must mimber 800,000, 

 making a grand- total of 3,800,000 head of 

 cattle in Texas. One-fourth of these are 

 beeves, one-fourth . are cows, and the other 

 two-fourths are yearlings and two-vear-olds. 

 There would, th'erefore, be 950,000 beeves, 

 950,000 cows, and 1,900,000 young cattle. 

 There are annually raised and branded 750,- 

 000 calves. These cattle are raised on the 

 great plains of Texas, which contain 152,000- 

 000 acres. 



labks' ©epartuitnt. 



From Harper's Magazine for February. 

 MARGUERITE. 



BY KATE P. OSGOOD, 



What aikth jjretty Marguerite? 



Such April moods about her meet ! / 



She sighs, ami yet she is uot sad ; 



She smiles, witli naught to make her glad. 



A thousand flitting fancies chase 

 The sun and shadow on her face; 

 The wind is not more light than she, 

 Nor deeper the unsounded sea. 



What aileth pretty Marguerite ? 

 Doth none discern her secret sweet? 

 Yet earth and air have many a sign 

 The lieart of maiden to divine. 



In budding leaf and building nest 

 Lie liidilen mysteries half confest; 

 And whoso hath the gift of sight 

 May Nature's riddle read aright. 



Not all at once the Iilj''s heart 

 Is kissed by wooing waves apart: 

 Not iu a day the lavish May 

 Flings all her choicest llowers away. 



Fair child ! shall jjotent Love alone 

 Forget to send his lieralds on ? 

 Ah, happy lips, that dare repeat 

 Wliat aileth pretty Marguerite ! 



MODERN HOUSEKEEPLRTG. 



The fashions of modern life are not favor- 

 able to good hotisekeej)ing. Here and there 

 we meet with a woman who lias made it an art, 

 and carried it out to a beautiful perfection ; but 

 the number of those who have done so is small 

 compared to the iuditterent, the ineflicient, 

 those who interfere without organizing, and 

 those who have given up their office to ser- 

 vants, retaining merely that symbol of authori- 

 ty called "keeping the keys." Few women 

 above a very mediocre social position do any- 

 tliing in the house ; and the fatal habit of fine- 

 ladyism is gradually descending to the trades- 

 man's and mechanic's classes ; fewer still try 

 to elevate the system of housekeeping altogeth- 

 er, and makeitpossibleforladies, eventhe artifi- 

 cial product, to take an active part in it with pleas- 

 ure and profit to themselves. Yet French 

 and German women keep house actively, and 

 do not disdain the finer portions of the work. 



I With the help of tlie machines which Amer- 

 ican need has fashioned for the home, this 

 I does not seem a very degrading task for 

 j women. One consequence wherever ladies of 

 ! education are active housekeepers is, that a 

 more scientific, compact, cleanly and less rude 

 I and wasteful mode of cookery obtains. And 

 j indeed that cooking question is a grave one, 

 I belonging especially to women, and (piite as 

 important in its om'u way as the knowledge of 

 drugs and the mixing iq) of pills. Women do ' 

 not consider it so, and ladies are rather i)roud 

 than otherwise of tlieir ignorance of an art 

 which is one of their elemental natural duties. 

 But they want to be doctors, if they object to 

 be cooks. Yet how it can be cont.idered hon- 

 orable to get meat by manipiilating assafceti- 

 da, and degrading to attend to the cooking of 

 that meat when got — beneath the dignity of a 

 woman's hitellect to understand the constitu- 

 ent elements of food and what they make in 

 the human frame, yet consistent with that dig- 

 nity to understand the elTect of drugs — why the 

 power of bringing back to healtli should be a 

 science fit for the noblest intellects to under- 

 take, and the art of keeping in health an office 

 fit only for the grossest and most ignorant to 

 fill — is a nice distinction of honor, the (juality 

 of winch I, for one, have never been able to 

 understand ; nor why that impcn'nin in impe- 

 rio, the kitchen, is a better institution than the 

 centralization of authority dating from the 

 drawing-room. Society in its simplest aspect 

 is, as it were, the radical of our own more 

 complex conditions, and do as we will, we 

 cannot escape from the eternal fitness of this 

 division of labor — the man to })rovide. the wo- 

 man to prepare for use and to distribute. 

 While, then, our housekeeping is bad because 

 not unilertaken witli heart or intellect, and 

 while our national cookery is still little better 

 than "plain roast and boiled," we cannot say 

 that we have gone through this lesson from 

 end to end, or exhausted even this portion of 

 our special acre. — Macmillan'' s Magazine. 



LOVE GIFTS. 



From time immemorial the most useful love- 

 gifts have been rings, bracelets of hair, flow- 

 ers, birds, scented gloves, embroidered hand- 

 kerchiefs, and sucli like articles, Autolycus 

 has, in his peddler's pack :" 



"Golden quoifs and stomachers 

 For my lads to give their dears." 



In ancient Greece, pretty birtls were gener- 

 ally love-gifts ; caged birds were sold in the 

 market at Athens for that purj)ose. Amonc 

 the Romans rings were excliauLied ; and this 

 custom seems to have prevailed in all af'es 

 and every country. Chaucer di-scribes Cres- 

 seide as giving Troilus a ring with a "posv," 

 and receiving one from him in exchanore, and 

 Shakespeare frequently alludes to such tokens. 

 The rings that fortia and Nerissa present to 

 their betrothed husbands play a conspicuous 



