1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
385 
TEE MWSEIMiLDo 
{For other Household Items, sec "Basket " 2>agcs). 
How to Use Corn Husks. 
TABLE MAT. 
IN-DOOR MAT. 
Large quantities of corn husks are wasted every 
year, which might be made useful in many ways. 
Alien simply stripped into shreds and dried, they 
make soft wholesome beds and excellent cushions. 
We have seen the husks 
shredded upon an old- 
fashioned hatchel, but it 
would be much better to 
arrange a single row of 
teeth or blades, in a heavy 
board or block for a base, 
so that the husks could 
be drawn across them in 
small handfuls, and slit 
into shreds from a quarter to half an inch in width. 
The farmer who uneasily changes his seat every 
moment as he rides to market, upon the rough 
board placed across his wagon, would find ease and 
comfort upon a bag filled with corn husk shippings. 
Many other uses may be found for husks, but one 
of the most important, is the manufacture of mats, 
both for the table and for the door. Very elegant 
table mats have been made from the finer husks, 
and if care is taken to select the softest and best 
colored husks, tlie mats will not disgrace the most 
carefully furnished table. Fig. 1 represents a mat 
made of busks, which has done service upon our 
table for several years, 
and which is yet equal 
to uew. It was made 
from the fine inner 
husks, which, when the 
corn is ripe, are of a 
delicate straw color. 
These are dampened 
with clean water, and 
plaited in a three cord 
plait made close, firm, and even. Wheu one of the 
husks is nearly used up, the end of the other is placed 
beneath it, and the plaiting goes on ; fresh ones are 
worked in, in this manner, as needed ; the loose ends 
being always left projecting at the under side of 
the braid, to be cut off neatly afterwards. As the 
braid is plaited it is wound into a ball, until several 
yards are made. It is then trimmed of the loose 
ends, dampened again, and then sewed together 
by the edges with straw colored silk, into mats of 
any shape desired. If oval mats are to be made, 
the braid is to be folded side by side of such a 
length, as the length of 
the mat is to exceed its 
width. If the mat is to 
be round, or square, or six 
or eight sided, it is begun 
in the same shape, and 
each round very carefully sewed to the one pre- 
ceding it, in such a manner as to retain the shape. 
When it is finished it should be dampened once 
more and ironed with a hot flat-iran, and placed to 
dry beneath a folded sheet and a heavy weight. 
Very pretty mats are made by dyeing the husks of 
light neutral tints, such as drab, lilac, or French 
grey. The brighter colors of red, green, blue, or 
purple, are too glaring to look well upon a table, 
and arc not to 
be recommend- 
ed. For heavier 
use the coarser 
husks may be 
selected, and 
very tasteful 
floor mats may be made of them. For these mats 
the brighter colors may he used with advantage, 
and a tasteful combination will have a good effect. 
Fi;. 2 shows a mat of this character. At fig. 3 is 
seen another useful domestic article, a slipper, 
which is of far too infrequent use in farmer's 
houses. The braid is sewn together with double 
silk, or strong drab linen thread, and very service- 
able, and even handsome slippers may be thus 
Fig. 3.— SLIPPED. 
Fig. 4.— BRAID. 
made. Finally the kitchen door may be furnished 
with mats made of husks. For this rough use the 
thickest husks should be chosen, and they should 
be plaited together thickly, but tightly. The 
tighter and closer the braid, the more durable will 
be the mat. There are several kinds of kitchen 
mats that may be made. The plain braid may be 
sewn together with stout twine and a coarse 
needle, in the shape shown at fig. 2, or it may be 
made of any other desirable shape. Another 
method is to weave a double husk into the plait at 
each turn-over. These are put in as thickly as 
possible, as shown at fig. 4. When enough has been 
plaited, the braid is sewn together as before 
described, leaving the double husks which have 
been interwoven, projecting at the upper side, in 
the manner of a brush. These are clipped off 
evenly with a pair of shears, and the result is a mat 
like the one shown at fig. 5. This by no means 
exhausts the list or variety of mats. Ingenious 
boys and girls, may devise many other ways of 
using corn husks, and these will occur to them as 
soon as they commence to make one mat. For 
very rough use such as 
out door purposes, and 
for barns, husk mats 
may be made by taking 
the head of a flour 
barrel or board, and 
nailing two cleats 
across to keep them together firmly ; then boring 
holes close together with an inch auger, and insert- 
ing into each hole a bunch of husks tightly rolled 
together. A wooden peg is driven into the centre 
of each bunch, at the under side of the mat to 
secure it firmly, and when every hole is filled, the 
top of the mat is clipped evenly. When a mat of 
this kind becomes worn, it is easily renewed by re- 
placing the old and broken husks with new ones. 
Fig. 
-OUT-DOOR MAT. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH KOCHESTEB. 
Does Sickness Pat?— Any sane person would, 
of course, say " no." Then a large proportion of 
our neighbors must be insane, if we may judge by 
then- actions ; for they do the very things that in- 
duce disease day after day, and year after year, 
groaning over various aches and pains, giving a 
week or a month now and then to the tedious 
necessities of sickness, and paying heavy doctor's 
bills every year - . All this, as a matter of course — 
is mainly the result of ignorance. I mean ignorance 
in respect to the bodies we inhabit, and the laws of 
our Maker with regard to their growth and health. 
Many persons, who are learned enough in ancient 
languages and in general information about all 
sorts of things outside themselves, have no sort of 
knowledge as to living so as to be comfortable from 
day to day, getting the best use of their powers, 
and escaping disease and premature decay and 
death. Whole families of "cultivated" people 
live daily in such a way as to ruin their health, and 
so destroy the power of using and enjoying the cul- 
ture they have acquired. Then they employ a 
doctor to cure them, hut go on tearing down what 
they are paying him heavily for trying to build up. 
Does it pay ? 
My late neighbor, for instance : she is a woman 
of uncommon ability as a housekeeper. She scorns 
the idea of stopping to rest, and is proud of her 
ability to do more and harder work than any of 
her neighbors. She ridicules those who refuse to 
eat anything that tastes good, for the reason that it 
is injurious to their health. Nothing ever hurts 
her, according to her own story. But this woman 
has severe fits of sickness every year, and the list 
of her ailments is truly astonishing. Last year she 
paid over one hundred dollars to her doctors — 
money that she worked hard to cam when well 
enough to do so. Last month she still laughed at 
the idea of taking care of her health, but she was 
then under the doctor's care, and was sending 
away to procure expensive medicines. 
It was a little five-year-old girl who set me upon 
this train of thought to-day. She said of a former 
playmate : 
" Huldah used to be always eating candy or sugar 
and bread. How much candy she used to eat ! " 
"And she is a poor sick child," I answered. 
" Tes, she always had the tooth-aehe, or the 
stomach-ache, or something." 
We all remembered how much and how helpless- 
ly she used to cry sometimes, how pale she usually 
looked, how small she remaiued, while some of her 
playmates, more wisely fed aud clothed and lodged, 
went on out-growing her. Little five-year-old de- 
clared she thought it did'ut pay to eat candy, which 
only tasted good in the mouth for a few minutes, 
aud then suffer so much to pay for it. Tet she is 
not such an unchildish child as to refuse the next 
stick of candy offered her. However, she will 
bring it to mamma, if she does as always hereto- 
fore, and accept it in half-inch lengths at hermeals, 
dividing with others when it is dealt out to her. 
Aud, though you may laugh, I really believe 1hat 
a child fed so moderately upon such concentrated 
sweets, gets more enjoyment out of them than one 
who cats twenty times as much in quantity. 
It pays a good deal better to take a little rest, 
and to try a little fasting perhaps, when the body 
begins to complain of weariness and discomfort, 
(did you ever notice that the word disease is simply 
dis-ease, or not-ease?), than to stagger on with fool- 
ish bravado, and have to lie by in pain and weak- 
ness for weeks aud months when these follies have 
piled up high enough to bring about the crash. It 
pays in dollars and cents to avoid doctor's bills by 
avoiding sickness. Our little family can not boast 
of robust constitutions, or of the most healthy hab- 
it s in all respects — if we should wish to do such fool- 
ish boasting — but we do often rejoice that we arc able 
to escape severe illnesses aud that we have found 
no necessity for a doctor's care or doctor's bills for 
several years past, aud that no medicines, beyond 
eaie in the adjustment of our diet, exercise, rest, 
clothing, and cleanliness, ever seem needed or get 
used by us. Some sickness we must expect until 
sanitary conditions are allowed to each — until we are 
all wise enough to see the inter-dependence of each 
aud all. Then we can work together and clear up 
this present "vale of tears," so that it may be a 
very pleasant and comfortable home for us while 
we wear our robes of flesh — and for such glorious 
consummation I hope I work no less cheerfully be- 
cause " it may be," as you say, " millions and mil- 
lions of years hence." 
Potato Diet. — Not long ago I remarked in the 
course of conversation with a lady that my children 
ate a good deal of bread and milk. "My Willie 
seldom eats it," she said. "He seems to need 
something more nourishing — eats a good deal of 
potato." Here our conversation was interrupted. 
If Willie eats milk, or eggs, or loan meat, with hid 
potato, very well. But if he is kept upon potato 
aud butter, or fat gravy, with white bread and but- 
ter, and cake and pastry at meals when potato is 
absent, he is very poorly nourished in my opinion. 
He may look fat, as children do when food is main- 
ly of the fattening or heat-producing kind ; but he 
will be likely to lack in bone and muscle. Potatoes 
alone cannot supply the system with enough of the 
mineral elements required for a healthy growth. 
So says Dr. Edward Smith, the author of an excel- 
lent book on " Foods." This book agrees in the 
main with one to which I have before referred, 
"The Philosophy of Eating," though less given to 
theorizing and more to the simple description of 
various kinds of food. In the Philosophy of Eat- 
ing we are taught that potatoes are finely adapted 
to be eaten with lean meat — the starchy potatoes 
furnishiug the fattening and heating elements 
which lean meat lacks, while the lean meat sup- 
plies the bone and muscle-making elements not af- 
forded by potato'or fine flour bread. Fat meat af- 
fords heating and fattening elements, like potato, 
but in a form less easily digested by most persons. 
Fat Children and Condensed Milk. — I have 
seen condensed milk recommended for infants 
deprived of their mother's milk, but the author of 
"Foods," says that it should never be used as a 
