472 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Decembbk, 
Meanwhile, with the youngest children, we avail 
ourselves of the hospitality of good friends, until 
there has been opportunity for the cooking stove 
and a few beds lo get ready for use in the new 
home. Here we set some necessary stitches in 
needed garments, and plan ways and means with 
those who know all about it. Here we send out 
Fig. 1. — EVAPOKATOK FOK A STOVE. 
postal cards to correspondents, notifying them of 
the last change of address. Here we toss uneasily 
on our pillow at night — when we think of the 
house we have left so far from the point of cleanli- 
ness. What if the woman who expected to live in 
it after us, and who kindly came to beg us not to 
do the least thing toward cleaning — what if she 
should not live in it after all ! No good house- 
keeper would willingly leave a house uncleuned. 
She would not like any one coming after her to 
suppose that she had tolerated such a state of 
things. Having some weeks of warning, she would 
gradually remove from the walls and windows and 
floors such traces as she could of the ravages of 
flies and children's fingers. 
In tlie ]Vc\v Honie. 
There is certainly some gain in our moving. 
Let us not try to discover any loss. But that 
cistern ! Mischievous boys in the neighborhood, 
out of simple mischief, had broken into the 
house while it was unoccupied, and turning on the 
water in the basement kitchen, had let all the water 
higher than the kitclien faucet, probably nine- 
tenths of the whole, run away, not only wasting 
the water, but soaking the kitchen floor so as to 
render it uninhabitable for some days. However, 
it is raining day and night now. 
If It isn't one thing, it is another. Tes, it is 
another. Shall I tell what other? I don't quite 
know myself. But I had a strong suspicion of the 
fellow's name when I found him under a basket of 
soiled clothes, and when I discovered his brother 
hastening to hide himself, as I took up a dish of 
chickeu-feed, which had stood on an entry floor all 
night, I captured him and took him in an empty 
wash-dish to the Unabridged Hlustrated Dictionary. 
C-o-c — cockroach ! There, sure enough, was his 
picture. Well, the days of peace have not arrived 
yet, and I am glad I was not so verdant as to have 
expected them right along, because some desires of 
my heart were gratified. Here then is a new study 
of insects, about which " more anon." 
Rags for Rugs. 
Speaking of carpet-rags, of course I mean rug- 
rags too. For I have it in my plan to make three 
or four rugs as soon as I can get around to it. Some 
of the Nova-Scotia neighbors, among whom I lately 
lived, make all their carpet rags into rugs, cover- 
a whole large floor with them, usually drawing their 
rags into strong canvas, with a hook made for the 
purpose. Some of them are very nice, as most of 
my readers know. But a braided rug seems an 
easier thing to manage, and I believe I like that 
kind for eve/y day use as well as anj^ 1 have seen. 
I saw one the other day which a grandmamma 
made when she first began to keep house, and 
which had been in use more than a score of years. 
I saw also one that her daughter had begun to 
make, which might do equal service. The rags 
were good, evenly cut, pieced together neatly, and 
braided so as to conceal all raw edges. The strands 
were rolled as they were braided, so as to keep all 
raw edges out of sight, making a thick, round, firm 
braid. An oval piece (or a parallelogram with 
rounded corners) of Brussels carpeting, (to be got 
at carriage shops), or other firm nice carpet or 
cloth, makes a pretty center to the rug. Line this 
with thick cloth. If the lining is glued to the piece 
of carpet, it makes all more firm. Bind it with 
strong braid, and sew the braided rags around this 
piece. The center may be of any size you like, 
from 6 to 30 inches long, but the whole rug looks 
better when such a center piece is used, instead of 
beginning at the center with the braid. Strong car- 
pet thread should be used for sewing. 
Pieced Stiffs are pretty loo, and very useful in 
some I'ooms. Good thick cloth may be cut in 
strips, squares, or diamonds, and laid in some sim- 
ple pattern, using two or more colors. When these 
have been sewed together according to the pattern, 
and pressed, making a rag of whatever size you 
please, line the whole with some strong material, 
and tack it together in an ornamental fashion. Sew 
on small fancy rosettes, cut from cloth that har- 
monizes with the whole, or make your tufts where 
the tacking together is done. A scalloped border, 
made with a pinking iron or without it, may be ad- 
ded. This is a good use for old thick coats. 
Saving Work. 
An acquaintance, who manages to do the work 
for a family of six, and to get, besides, some time 
for reading and society, tells me some of her ways, 
which I mean to put in practice more or less. All 
of the family wear flannel next the skin in winter, 
and this washes more easily than cotton cloth, need- 
ing no rubbing when washed with a machine and 
good suds. The outer garments in winter are most- 
ly made of worsted or woolen material, and so are 
sponged off when soiled, without the labor of wash- 
ing and ironing. She reasons that if her boys can 
be decent in dark cloth garments, seldom washed 
all over, her girls, with neater habits, can do the 
same. So she puts a colored worsted or plaid flan- 
nel polonaise on each girl, instead of an apron, pro- 
tecting it, when dishes are washed or wiped, with a 
sleeved calico apron, and at table with napkin or bib. 
No doubt it would be the perfection of neatness 
to wear freshly-laundered garments, outside and in, 
every day, but she has counted the cost and cannot 
afford it. With weekly changes of under flannel, 
frequent baths, pure air, and wholesome food and 
drink, she hopes to maintain the family health with- 
out much expenditure of strength in washing and 
ironing outer garments. With the same end in 
view, she carpets all of the rooms except the 
kitchen, and lays strips of rag carpet and rugs over 
parts of the kitchen. The flannel under-garments, 
being wrung with a wringer, are considered ready 
for use when clean, dry, and well aired, without 
ironing. Night-gowns being made of flannel, or of 
soft unbleached cloth, are folded and put away dry, 
without ironing. Dish towels are treated in the same 
way. No rufiled garments are allowed in the wash- 
ing, and no time is spent at the sewing machine in 
making ruffles or knife-plaiting. Seldom is any 
time spent in making cake or pie, some form of 
fruit usually satisfying all demands in the way of 
dainties or delicacies. The most common desert at 
her table, one satisfactory to each member, is a 
single good raw apple after the body of the meal. 
Being Too Particular. 
My acquaintance seems to me a very sensible 
woman, but whUe I report her ideas and practices, 
I am reminded of an article I saw in the household 
columns of a weekly paper, last summer, entitled 
"Too Particular." The author, an elderly lady of 
much household wisdom, believes that it is hardly 
possible for a house-keeper to be too particular 
about her work, and she advises young house-keep- 
ers to lay down on the start, certain rules to guide 
them in their duties, such as " Never put off until 
to-morrow what can be done today." "Whatever 
is worth doing, is worth doing well." " Never look 
at scarlet geraniums through smoky windows." 
All rules must be used with judgment, and with 
a certain breadth of wisdom. It will never do to 
defer till the to-morrow which never comes, the 
reading of your paper or magazine, in order to con- 
scientiously search out and clean away every speck 
of dust in the crevices of the room, nor to let extra 
nice house-keeping prevent your daUy effort to "do 
well " the patient training of your children. If the 
house-keeper is also a wife and mother, she has a 
great variety of duties, and must not make her 
family unhappy by either over-zeal or neglect. 
Let us Moisten the Air we Sreathe. 
Those who live in the modern hoitse, in which 
close-fitting windows are made still closer by 
"weather-strips" of rubber, and where the heating 
is by hot-air from a furnace or by coal-stoves, have 
become gradually accustomed to the atmosphere ; 
but when one whose house is heated by open grates 
and fire-places, visits one of these modern houses, 
a sense of discomfort, of being ill at ease, is at 
once felt, and he or she, if the cause is ascertained, 
feels quite willing to bear with the inconvenience 
of open fires for the sake of the more pleasant and 
healthful atmosphere they bring. If one enters a 
greenhouse in winter, the exclamation usually is, 
"How warm and summer-like." — The warmth is 
perhaps not greater than that of the person's own 
rooms at home, and the "summer-like" impres- 
sion is not due to the greater heat, but to the mois- 
ture in the air of the greenhouse, a condition nec- 
essary to the proper growth of plants. If one 
would see how unlike the air of a greenhouse is 
to that of an ordinary room, just take a plant from 
one to the other, keeping the room at the usual 
temperature of the greenhouse. In a week or 
less, the plant will present a sorry appearance, 
showing that, however it may be for human life, the 
atmosphere of our dwellings is not generally suited 
to plant life. That the air of our houses should be 
as highly charged with moisture as that of a green- 
house unavoidably wiU be, we do not claim, but 
that it is generally too dry in our dweUinge, the 
Fig. 3. — ^EVAPORATOR FOR A REQISTBB. 
warped furniture, the cracks in the doors and wood- 
work, and the open joints in picture frames, are 
abundant evidence, even if we do not heed the dry- 
ness of the hair, the harshness of the skin, and the 
unpleasant feeling of the throat, so common — at 
least with sensitive persons — in winter. The neces- 
sity for a moist atmosphere is admitted by the 
stove-makers, as upon nearly all stoves for heating 
purposes only, there is some receptacle to hold 
water to be evaporated, and these are generally ex- 
cellent illustrations of " how not to do it." If .we 
wished to keep water upon a stove, and prevent it 
from evaporating as much as possible, we should 
have the vessel stand upon some support that would 
conduct but little heat, and partly cover it. Most 
of the stoves have just this contrivance — an urn or 
