1874.] 
AMKRICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
3-45 
OTIS MILJ§lffi(0)llDo 
l^"(For other Household Items, see "Basket " pages). 
A Corn Knife. 
In October 1873, we published a description with 
engravings, of a corn cutter sold at the furnishing 
stores, which was indented for cutting the kernels 
of green com, and pressing out their contents 
at one operation. This cutter worked very well, 
but being made to sell at a very small price, was a 
cheaply made affair. " 0. H. A.," of Winchester, 
Va., sends us a drawing of a corn knife, which we 
have had engraved. Mr. A., says : 
" It is used to cut green corn from the cob, the 
same as the corn cutter, figured in October 
HOME-MADE CORN-KNIFE. 
Number, 1873, and can be made by any person 
having a handsaw-file, and an old table knife. 
Take an old table knife, or a new one will do equally 
well, and cut out circularly with a cold chisel 2t 
inches of the edge : then file sharp teeth al- 
together from one side, so that the points will 
present a long cutting surface. Pass this edge a 
few times down the ear, then scrape it with the 
back of the knife, and you have all the kernels of 
corn out, with the hull left on the cob. Corn pre- 
pared in this way is very much more digestible, 
then when cut or eateu from the cob. 
Home Topics. 
EY FAITn ROCHESTER. 
* Mamma, Come and See." — Iliad just written 
"Home Topics" at the top of my pa^e, when I 
heard the familiar call, "mamma, come and see 
my house ! Mamma, come and see my house!" 
"Mamma has gone up-stairs, and she can not 
come now," said Auntie. And so the call was 
hushed for a few minutes, Auntie having given a 
few words of praise to the little house-builder 
three years old. 
How much of my time is spent in going "to 
see" — flowers, wild and "tame," toads, frogs, 
snakes, beetles, worms, insects' eggs and larva?, 
pictures, maps of imaginary lands, block-houses 
and churches, and barns and pig-stys, and monu- 
ments, supposed to belong to the inhabitants of 
those imaginary muds, and other things "too 
numerous to mention " ? 
Does it pay ? — It interferes with the order and 
promptness of housework, it hinders the sewing, it 
interrupts my reading and writing— the very little 
that I undertake to do in these busy clays. Often I 
am so tired that I dread to hear the call, " come 
and see," and it is a real self-denial (as far as " the 
flesh" is concerned) to give up a moment's rest 
for a child's gratification. 
But " the spirit " — the enlightened mother-spirit 
— is always willing to sympathize with a child's 
pleasure, and to encourage its happy activity and 
investigation. There is so much occasion for re- 
proof and disapprobation in our intercourse with 
growing children in whom nature has a chance to 
assert itself and cut up capers, that we ought to 
seize every opportunity to gratify their innocent 
desires, and to listen to their fresh experiences, 
though they may seem trivial to a superficial ob- 
server. Children's experiences and observations 
are not unimportant, and parents who judge of 
them by the usual standard of grown-up experience, 
make a very great blunder. They "snub" the 
artless inquirers again and again, and wonder at 
hist that their older children do not confide in 
them more. Is it any wonder ? 
It seems very necessary that the children should 
have their little garments kept clean and whole, 
and that the rooms should be swept and garnished 
with regularity, and it hurts a housekeeper's feel- 
ings to have anything interfere with good house- 
keeping. But a true woman, who is blessed with 
children, lives more in her mother nature than in 
the disposition of a housekeeper ; and in looking 
back over a season, she considers with more 
pleasure the progress her children have made in 
their general education toward a useful manhood, 
or womanhood, than any feats in the line of soap- 
making, fruit-preserving, or sewing. But it is like 
the tithe-paying and deeds of love — "These ought 
ye to have done and not to have left the other un- 
done." 
Parental Infallibility. — I suppose there is 
nothing more silly than the attempt to appear 
knowing upon subjects where we are really ignor- 
ant. We are all so extremely ignorant; or we 
have, each of us, even the best informed, so little 
knowledge compared 
with the great sum of 
attainable knowledge, 
that any pretension of 
" knowing everything " 
is very absurd. If 
children are encouraged to ask questions about 
what they observe, they will puzzle the mother 
of average education very frequently. She need 
not be at all afraid or ashamed to answer, " I 
don't know " ; but she ought not to let the matter 
rest there. She ought to show an interest in the 
matter, and to find an answer to the question if she 
can. I have not found that children lose respect 
for their parents on account of their ignorance. I 
have to confess ignorance every day, and it is all 
taken to be natural enough. The thing which in- 
terested children wonder at most in grown-up 
people is their lack of interest in natural phenomena. 
Nothing hurts them more than the contempt of 
older people for their investigations— and it is very 
cruel. No doubt Agassiz was considered a lazy 
boy by some industrious people while he was float- 
ing about in his boat on lake Neuchatel, looking 
down into the water to observe the habits of the 
fishes. No doubt he was thought a cruel boy 
when he was seen dissecting insects and other ani- 
mals. No doubt he was called a "girl-boy" when 
he came from the woods with his hands full of wild 
flowers for analysis. Tet the whole world knows 
him now as a kind-hearted man, and his life is re- 
membered as one of great industry and usefulness. 
It is fortunate for us all that his natural bent was 
not interfered with. Our little inquirers may never 
become "great" — I don't care a fig for that — but 
they have a right to the use and development of 
such faculties as they have. 
The Corner-Chair.— In one of the early num- 
bers of Hearth and Home there was an illustrated 
description of a large corner-chair, such as any 
JO L'n/ 
Fig. 1. — SIDE OF CORNER-CHAIR. 
carpenter could make, and any woman of " faculty" 
might upholster. By the aid of the description and 
illustration we made ourselves such a chair, but 
found it too large to move out of the room. So it 
went with the house when the house was sold. I 
write now from the corner where that chair stands, 
and the youngest member of our family, aged two 
months, lies sleeping in the chair, his favorite day- 
time couch. I like to use it for baby's bed (or one 
of his beds), because the high back affords a good 
chance to throw a mosquito-net over him, out of 
the reach of his hands. 
The chair is on castors, and may be moved to 
any part of the room, but its appropriate place is 
a corner — either a light and sunny corner, or one 
near the fire in winter. Its ample dimensions and 
cushioned sides make it a cozy place for an after- 
dinner nap. Two or three small cushions piled up 
in the back would often be useful with the chair, 
as they could lie arranged to suit different postures. 
The covering of the chair may be of any suitable 
material — calico, if you choose, or velvet, if that 
suits your taste and purse better. The bottom, or 
seat, of our chair pulls off and reveals a box of two 
compartments beneath, where things not often 
needed can be packed away. These compartments 
are papered neatly inside, and a short groove under 
the seat-board on one side enables one to get hold 
and pull off the cover. 
I forgot whether our chair was made exactly ac- 
cording to the measurements given in Hearth 
and Home, but its size and shape suits us very 
well. Two broad boards, 30 x 46 inches, are cut in 
the shape shown in figure 1. The seat of the chair 
is shaped as though a square board, 30 x 30, had 
30 on> 
\ 
'$> 
Fig. 
-bottom of chair. 
one corner, or triangle with a hypotheuuse of 18 
inches, cut off. A frame is made in the same shape 
for this seat to rest upon, at a distance from the 
bottom of 13 inches. The seat-board raises the 
seat an inch higher, the castors another inch, and 
the cushion two or three inches more. Another 
board, 30 x 30, with one corner cut off, like the seat, 
forms the whole bottom of the chair. Cleats are 
nailed on at the place indicated by the dotted line 
in figure 1, and the three sides of the front of the 
chair are boarded up. 
Household Exercise. — To many women the 
labors of housekeeping are quite attractive, especi- 
ally if the houses they keep are their own. There 
is some dirty drudgery about the business, neces- 
sarily, though I think this will be lessened as ma- 
chinery and neighborly co-operation come more 
and more into use. Work is a lessing as well as a 
necessity to the human family, but affairs are so 
mixed up at present that some people have too 
much of it, and some have too little, for the good 
health of either class. 
Miss Alcott cannot afford to let a hired girl do 
the ironing, it is such rest to her own arms and 
hands when weary with writing. I found, not long 
ago, when living in another home than my own, 
that I was much healthier for having a part of the 
housework to do, though my own housework — the 
care as well as the labor — had been too much for 
my health at the time. As strength came back, its 
moderate use was the best way to increase it. 
Women, who have brain-work to do, will find it a 
good plan to perform some light household exer- 
cise before entering upon the writing or study. 
An easy walk out of doors may be better, but if 
there is housework to be done, that had better 
come in the morning, and the out-door work later 
in the day. 
Dish-washing is good for dyspeptics. It is light 
exercise of the arms and chest soon after a meal, 
