SEED-TIME A!© HARVEST. 
MY POCKET-BOOK. 
E’er since I was a brawing lad 
Ye’ve been the truest friend I’ve had, 
My pocket-book! 
And though your merits now I trace, 
You’ve led me many a sorry race, 
By hiding fast in hole or nook, 
My pocket-book! 
When you for hours, I failed to find, 
You made me doubtful of my kind, 
My pocket-book! 
I’ve looked in many an honest eye, 
A trace of conscious guilt to spy, 
That I, with truth might say, “You took 
My pocket-book I” 
Through you I’ve paid some honest debts, 
And yet have some vain regrets, 
My pocket-book! 
For though I’ve given of your store, 
I own I might have given more 
When prompted by a suffering look, 
My pocket-book! 
While you stand by me I shall know 
No lack of friendship as I go, 
My pocket-book 1 
Unless your walls should empty be, 
Then summer friends would quickly flee, 
And I subsist by hook or crook, 
My pocket-book! 
But I shall try to keep you full, 
By many a tug, and many a pull, 
My pocket book 1 
By honest work and labor grand, 
For labor crowns the teeming land, 
For poverty I scarce could brook. 
My pocket-book! 
—Mrs M. A. Kidder , in Demore&Vs Monthly. 
How do the Boys Spend their 
Evenings ? 
It is quite a common practice for the 
farmers’ boys and hired men to start off 
immediately after supper for the nearest 
village, from a half mile to two miles away, 
and loaf around some corner grocery where 
cigars, tobacco and small drinks are freely 
indulged in and gaming and other very 
bad habits are readily acquired. Of all the 
crops raised upon a farm the farmers’ boys 
themselves are by far the most important, 
and the farmer should study, above all 
things, to make a success of it, if lie is for¬ 
tunate enough to be bringing up some boys. 
Then let him above all things, study to keep 
his boys at home evenings, and furnish 
plenty of reading matter and other attrac¬ 
tions which will make them contented and 
happy without seeking the society which 
is found at the village groceries. 
A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer in 
speaking of the evils which result from 
habitual village loafing, says: “We once 
knew a farmer who had a good farm of 120 
acres given to him, and eighteen years 
later died about two thousand dollars in 
debt. He averaged four nights a week 
spent at the grocery or post-office one and 
a quarter miles from home. These four 
evenings a week, for eighteen years, de¬ 
voted to the study of some special branch 
of agriculture or horticulture, would have 
made him an authority and a man of note, 
and opened up to him an entire new world 
of thought, of which he died in utter ignor¬ 
ance.” 
And this is stating only the mildest ob¬ 
jection to the common habit of village 
loafing. Loss of time and attention to busi¬ 
ness and a consequent loss of property - 
A much greater evil result is the loss of 
character and health, and the bad habits 
which our boys are sure to pick up in such 
company. 
i^i- 
Testing Seeds. 
Treating this subject from an amateur 
stand-point would naturally lead one into 
the experimental. The old theories of the 
gardeners of the past may have answered 
for their age, but the present horticul¬ 
turist must make improvements on the 
past. Our time is so limited; our seasons 
so short, we must bring to our aid all of 
the improved methods now known by the 
advanced gardeners of our time. Although 
we differ, yet in these differences we 
make progress. The testing of seeds before 
general planting is now essential; no gar¬ 
dener or seedsman thinks of taking his 
chances on untested seed. The testing and 
culture of seeds and plants by the amateur 
is taught with more or less of a loss, and 
sometimes these losses are in the end our 
best teachers. The comparative sizes of 
seeds is remarkable. For instance, the 
diminutiveness of the Petunias or Calceo¬ 
laria seed is so small, a mere speck like a 
point of a pin; while a kernel of corn is a 
