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HOME AND FLOWERS 



requires artificial drainage. We have some 

 grand Maple trees. For several years they have 

 been stretching out their leafy branches, and 

 we have seen they were approaching too near. 

 Tender memories are attached to every tree, 

 and we are loath to part with them. We have 

 decided to sacrifice at least two of them, but 

 somehow the work is delayed. They give us a 

 welcome shade hot summer afternoons, where 

 we, with rockers, spend much of our leisure. 

 Whatever a man may do toward sanitary im- 

 provement, if the woman be slack and careless 

 his attempts will avail nothing. It has been 

 said that 'cleanliness is next to Godliness.' I 

 believe it is Godliness itself." 



"I am very much in sympathy with farmers' 

 wives, as I was born on a farm in Oneida county 

 and lived on one till I was twenty -one. But 

 my father was not one of the slack iLrmers — our 

 buildings were all good and comfortable, we had 

 a nice yard, garden, flowers, and shrubbery, and 

 everything convenient for doing work, I don't 

 wonder that some leave home who are brought 

 up on a farm, I went once to take care of an 

 old lady. Her son had the farm, and took care 

 of his mother. All they had in the house were 

 the old things his mother had kept house with 

 forty years ago. The chairs had been worn 

 till not a particle of paint was left, and their 

 meals were alike three times a day — pork, po- 

 tatoes, and bread. Not a book was there to 

 read except a few old school books and the 

 Bible. I stayed a week. That was the longest 

 week I ever saw. He had a son about eighteen 

 years old. He seemed a bright young man, 

 but two years after that, while his father had 

 gone to the factory, he hung himself in the barn. 

 I did not wonder at it, for if I had to live in 

 such a home, I think life would have been a 

 burden. So I don't wonder that so many of 

 the farmers' boys leave home. No wonder my 

 school education was limited. I only went to 

 the common school till fourteen years old. But 

 I am a great reader. When I lived where I 

 could get library books I had them, and now at 

 fifty-five years I read all the current topics of 

 the day. I want to know what is going on in 

 the world. I have often wondered how people 

 that never read live — nothing to think of when 

 old. Yes, the average farmer's vdfe takes a 

 good many steps— nothing handy, and a good 

 many have no faculty to plan their work. That 

 makes it still harder. Think I will weary you, 

 so close with the hope that hereafter the 

 farmer's wife's lot will be more pleasant." 



The following is an interesting comment upon 

 the lack of ability of those women who marry 

 and do not learn to cook: 



DYSPEPSIA AND DIVORCE 



Bad cookery and slovenly housekeeping were 

 the direct cause of four hundred divorces in the 

 city of Chicago last year. This statement, by 

 the head of the Chicago Bureau of Charities, 

 furnishes every housewife in the land with a. 

 subject for serious reflection, for husbands' 

 tempers and digestions are equally frail in 

 Maine, Illinois, and California, and divorces 

 know not geographical limits. During 1902, it 

 appears, four hundred deserted wives who ap- 

 plied at the Bureau of Charities for assistance, 

 and later obtained divorces, admitted that they 

 could "neither cook nor keep house," and of 

 course they could not expect to keep husbands. 

 For these unhappy marriages the men them- 

 selves were to blame in great measure, and they 

 need not pose as objects of popular sympathy. 

 Why did they marry women ignorant o'f the first 

 requisites of a happy domestic life? 



If this unfortunate condition of affairs is 

 paralleled elsewhere, sociologists will have to 

 wrestle with the knotty problem of how a young 

 man before proposing matrimony may gauge 

 accurately a young woman's knowledge of do- 

 mestic science. Shall he seek the advice of some 

 noted authority like Mrs. Hiller, and receive 

 thorough coaching in the subject in order to 

 become a competent judge of his beloved's qual- 

 ifications? Shall the question: "Can you cook?"' 

 precede the question: "Will you wed?" 



While the adoption of such unromantic ex- 

 pedients would grate upon a sensitive nature, 

 something must be done if affairs are as bad 

 as Chicago's superintendent of charities would 

 have us believe. Perhaps it would be as well 

 for American masculinity to take a few lessons 

 in the gentle art of frying eggs and boiling 

 coffee as a preliminary training for matrimony 

 (for who can tell when this knowledge might 

 come into play?) or test personally the possi- 

 bilities of the chafing dish, that close culinary 

 companion of the lonely bachelor. Evidently 

 logic can trace an intimate connection between 

 dyspepsia and divorces, and wise wives will not 

 be slow to take the hint.— T7ie Houselceeper. 



Home and Flowers grows better and more 

 of a help to the amateur florist with every num- 

 ber. The July number is a distinct advance. — 

 Western Christian Advocate. 



I have paid for Home and Flowers for this 

 year. I think a great deal of it. Yours with 

 respect, Sarah Chittenden. 



Wayne county, N. Y. 



