merry-making. The next day the lamb is 
part baked, boiled and loasted for the 
lady’s feast, where she sits majestically at 
the upper end of the table, and her com¬ 
panions with her, with music and attend¬ 
ants, which ends the solemnity.” 
There doesn’t seem to have been much 
tha„ was solemn in such performances, and 
the sport, itself, may appear to you as un¬ 
womanly and unmaidenly; but they were 
not deemed so in those days, and the times 
one lives in and the feelings we have con¬ 
cerning them, make all the difference. 
Don’t you think it is just as bad to be too 
prudish as to be too boisterous? But the 
following one I think carries the matter a 
little too far an the boisterous side. It is 
called “Peppard Revel,” perhaps, because 
some of the revelers were well peppered 
during the same. The following advertise¬ 
ment appeared in the Reading Mercury for 
May 24, 1819. “Peppard Revel will be held 
on Whit-Monday, May 31, 1819; and for 
the encouragement of young and old game¬ 
sters, there will be a good hat to be played 
for at cudgels: for the first seven couple 
that play, the man that breaks most heads 
to have the prize; and one shilling and six¬ 
pence will be given to every man that 
breaks a head, and one shilling to the man 
that his his head broken.” I should think 
that was a poor plaster for the latter, and 
would hardly pay for liniment and band¬ 
ages, yet I am also inclined to believe that 
the persons, who engaged in such sports, 
must have had cracked heads in the first 
place, or a “plentiful scarcity” of brains. 
Morris Dancers seem to have been identi¬ 
fied with a great many out-door jollifica¬ 
tions; they were merely grotesquely attired 
individuals who went through a variety of 
ludicrous actions, and they did not do a 
great amount of real dancing. It is sup¬ 
posed that the designation of Morris Dan¬ 
cers was derived from Moorish Dancers, 
and their actions, the dance of the Moors: 
the dance itself, and the dance himself, is 
often called Morisco. 
Did it strike you as being a little singular, 
when I mentioned the decorating of the 
wells, that in this same month we use one 
day to decorate the soldier’s graves ? Of 
course our custom does not come from the 
one 1 have named; and yet it struck me 
as a singular coincidence. Both are beauti¬ 
ful customs and I hope neither will become 
absolete. It is good to link the present with 
the past; and I think if some of our ances¬ 
tors’ customs were still in vogue, we might 
have pleasanter times, and more of them. 
Here anti There. 
1Y JOHN M. STALL. 
1 would recommend the planting of po¬ 
tatoes in drills, because I get a larger yield 
when planted in this way, and because it is 
much easier to harvest potatoes when drill¬ 
ed. The day of harvesting potatoes with 
a hoe or spade, or even with a fork, is 
past, unless they are produced on a very 
small scale. No horse potato-digger that 
I have yet tried, possesses sufficient merit 
over a single barshare plow to justify the 
outlay for its purchase. However, there 
may be better potato diggers than I have 
been permitted to try. I harvest potatoes 
by drawing a furrow along each side of the 
ridge. Then two more furrows will throw 
the potatoes all out, to be gathered up by 
the boys and girls. If a steady horse is 
used, and the plowman is reasonably care¬ 
ful, not a potato will be cut or bruised; and 
if the ground is afterward harrowed, no po¬ 
tatoes will be lost, although so few will be 
overlooked, otherwise that I do not harrow 
the ground unless I wish to prepare the 
early potato patch for a crop of fall turnips— 
which I usually do. 
Is there anything in planting in the moon ? 
I have always been of opinion that there 
is, or had been some reason for such old 
superstitions, if we could only seek it out. 
I pay no attention to the moon when plant- 
ins. I think the condition of the earth, and 
not of the moon, should be the criterion, j 
But is it not probable that plants grow j 
faster in light nights than in dark ones ? | 
And if the}' do, then such plants as come j 
up quickly should be planted when the [ 
moon is new; while seeds which are slow 
to germinate should be planted after the 
full of the moon, as they will then come up | 
when the nights are light. Undoubtedly I 
more favorable nights for growth when the I 
plant first reached the surface, would have j 
