326 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Now, after the occupant of his new forest home has arrived upon the spot, 

 where wood is in superabundance, he can do nothing without iron. He may 

 have a wagon-load of gold, and find it useless if, with it, he could not pur- 

 chase axes, wedges, mattocks, crowbars, chains, plows, harrows, shovels, 

 spades, forks, hoes, et cetera, with his gold. 



And then, after all his iron wants are supplied, just look at the uses of 

 iron inside the house. It is true that afire-place can be made of sticks and 

 clay, and the pot that cooks his dinner may be of copper, suspended from a 

 wooden hook. And so may be many, or all the culinary utensils, of some 

 other metal, but how the poor man's gold would melt away in the purchase 

 of such things as were actually necessary, of copper, zinc, or brass. Let 

 every woman take a look at at a well-furnished kitchen, and think of the 

 uses of iron. From the convenient cooking-stove, the articles of various 

 form and use, down to the iron skewer that holds her joint while it roasts, 

 are " too numerous to mention." Without iron, we could not kill, and 

 dress, and cook, and eat our meat; and the stones that grind our grain for 

 bread are kept in order by the use of iron. 



The household conveniencies of iron are already so great as to be almost 

 inconceivable, except when we take a careful retrospect. And wood is be- 

 ing superseded with something new of iron, in the way of hoiise-fumishing, 

 every day. I ask those who have never reflected much upon this subject 

 to stop, in some of their walks along Broadway, a little above the City Hall 

 Park, at Hutchinson & Wickersham's store, or sample- rooms of iron fur- 

 niture, iron fencing, and iron railing, and they will learn a useful lesson of 

 the uses of iron. They will see bedsteads entirely of iron, even to the slats 

 that support the bed, which are not only good, strong, and durable, but 

 licrht and convenient, and truly elegant. They will also find tables, of va- 

 rious sizes and patterns, the most appropriate ever made for the farm-house. 

 Chairs, too — not heavy, cumbersome things, but light and tasty — they 

 will find made entirely of iron. And — what every farm-house should have 

 — they will also, find at moderate cost, screens for the milk, cellar, and 

 pantry windows — suitable to any purpose, whether to exclude burglars, 

 cats, dogs, or flies. 



To what manifold purposes you will see iron is adapted. That stove is 

 a great iron museum, well worth a visit from countryman or citizen. 



Ah ! the fence. Don't forget if you will build fences, to look how beau- 

 tiful, or how plain and cheap, it can be made of iron. 



There is one more use of iron on the farm that is entirely too much neg- 

 lected. No farmer who owns a well or cistern can possibly afford to be 

 without an iron pump. He cannot use wood as a substitute, because the 

 mere lifting of the water from the bottom of the well is but half the use of 

 the pump. It should be at once a suction and a force pump — a perfect lit- 

 tle fire-engine — such as the one known as " West's Improved Pump," which 

 I do not think costs over $25, and which will draw water from a well 25 or 

 30 feet deep, and throw it through a hose to the house, and into any room 



