MINCE PIE.—MATTERS OF EXPERIENCE. 
63 
Tallies’ ^Department. 
MINCE-PIE. 
I see, Mr. Allen, a page you reserve 
For ladies, contributing aid ; 
How consoling the thought to be mixed up with cows, 
And of cattle form one of a head. 
Well, I’ve thought a good deal, on authorship bent, 
On what subject my hand I should try, 
And decided at last that your readers I’d treat, 
With a hint to make English mince-pie. 
Dear pie of my country ! beyond all compare; 
Of tartlets and sweets you’re the prince ; 
E’en pumpkins, the boast of New England’s cuisine, 
Must yield to our old English mince! 
First, take three pounds of apples line, 
These mince, and pare, and core; 
Of suet, fresh, and raisins, stoned, 
Three pounds of each add more. 
Of cinnamon, a quarter ounce, 
And just as much of mace ; 
Eight cloves, in finest powder crushed, 
With these ingredients place; 
Three-fourths of an ounce of salt; three pounds 
White sugar powdered fine ; 
To the rinds and juice of lemons two, 
Add a pint of good port wine. 
Of best cognac there needs a pint ; 
All which, placed in a pan, 
With care and industry mix well, 
With all the pains you can. 
Have ready washed and dried, four pounds 
Of currants; and candied fruit, 
And in the pie your care prepares, 
In good proportions put. 
Thus ends my receipt for this delicate pie ; 
Mind, of beef and of tongue no aid call in. 
And now, having finished the whole I’ve to say, 
T wish you good-bye, Mr. Allen. 
L. F. R. 
MATTERS OF EXPERIENCE. 
BY MRS. KIRKLAND. 
We said something last month, about the plea¬ 
sures and advantages of literature, and the possi¬ 
bility of those pleasures and advantages being en¬ 
joyed by the families of our thriving farmers. We 
wish to persuade the young people whom Provi¬ 
dence has placed in a position so favorable to the cul¬ 
tivation of the higher nature, that industry and acti¬ 
vity in business need not prevent a due attention to 
books, to flowers, and to other things conducive at 
once to utility and elegance. We may perhaps do 
this better by citing examples, than by the mere 
stringing together of dry precepts, so we Mull proceed 
with our little sketch of the daughters of Farmer 
Dickson. 
It is not unusual in families where some striking 
error or defect has produced evident ill consequences, 
to see an opposite course pursued by the younger 
members Thus sometimes a very careless and slat¬ 
ternly mother will have the neatest and most orderly 
daughter; or a coarse one, a family noted for refine¬ 
ment and manners. A drunken, brutal father, has 
sometimes struck such horror into the hearts of his 
family, that his sons would, by the mere force of 
contrast, be unusually circumspect and moral; or an 
andutiful elder brother will seem the living warning 
which keeps all the rest of the family in the most 
obedient and affectionate habits. It may have been 
on some principle similar to this, that Ellen Dickson 
became so different from her three elder sisters, and 
endeavored to make her little sister, Lizzie, very dif¬ 
ferent too. Ellen had always been more disposed to 
go to school than the others, and instead of taking 
advantage of every excuse for remaining at home as 
she saw them do, she had attended steadily when¬ 
ever she could, and by the time she was sixteen, she 
had obtained a tolerable knowledge of the plain 
branches taught in that part of the country; and, 
what was still better, she had imbibed a desire to 
know something more. We might say much on this 
same subject of country schools, both as regards 
scholars and teachers; much of the wretched practice 
of deducting from the tuition money all the days that 
the scholar chooses to stay away—a practice which 
is directly calculated to lead to irregular attend¬ 
ance ; much of the meagre and soulless character of 
too large a portion of the teaching, which inspires no 
desire of knowledge, but a silly emulation in the 
lowest and most mechanical things learned. We 
might dilate feelingly, for we have thought much, 
upon the little chance there is, even for a well dis¬ 
posed and intelligent young person to leatn anything 
beyond mere words, at most of our district schools. 
But we forbear, knowing that the subject is too im¬ 
portant for a casual notice. We shall only say that 
Ellen Dickson was unusually fortunate in her oppor¬ 
tunities, and had the sense to make good use of 
them. There was a library too, not very M 7 ell cho¬ 
sen, but still, better than none at all, from which she 
was in the habit of drawing books. Her sisters often 
reproved her for being idle while they were at work; 
but she felt that reading was not idleness, and that 
when she had performed what was required of her, 
it could not be wrong to attempt to learn something. 
So it became her first object to ascertain what were 
her duties at home ; no easy matter, where incessant 
toil was considered synonymous with virtue. This, 
however, by the aid of her father, she accomplished; 
and then, by dint of early rising and earnest industry, 
she had a good portion of the day at her own command. 
One of the first fruits of her studies was some in¬ 
sight into the habits of bees ; and she soon, persuad¬ 
ed her father to substitute properly made hives for 
the ragged, unsightly, and unprofitable ones which 
had long disgraced an old shed near the barn-yard. 
The new hives were placed in a sheltered corner of 
the garden, under a shed, opening to the east for the 
sake of the early sun and dew, with good store of 
roses, white and red, sweet violets, flowery thyme, 
and honeysuckle, within reach; while the ample 
orchard afforded the fruit trees, and the door-yard 
the white-clover blossoms, which, after all, the 
humming people seem to fancy as much as rarer 
sweets. " Near this favorite spot, under a great old 
apple-tree, and within sound of the pretty rill that 
trickled through the milk-house, would Ellen sit, 
book in hand, alternately watching the bees and 
reading, often attended by little Lizzie, who, playful 
as she was, could yet be persuaded, sometimes, to 
listen to what interested her sister. 
When it was time to gather the honey, Mr. Dick¬ 
son was so well pleased with the great improvement 
both in quantity and quality, that he gave Ellen a 
handsome share of the extra profit, to be applied in 
any way she might prefer. This afforded her an 
