166 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April 
those close at hand, I have often thought of since. 
Far more interesting than the birds from Africa, 
would have been the birds of that farm; aud no 
minerals from California, even if they contained 
gold, were half so beautiful as the varied forms 
that might have been collected near home. That 
visit to this farmer’s collection gave me the idea of 
Home or ii'arm Museums. 
I think I said something of the matter several years 
ago, but have not mentioned it of late. Every farm 
A MARKET BASKET FULL TO OVERFLOWING WITH KITTENS. 
has some room or loft in some building, where the 
youngsters—for it is a work for both boys and 
girls—can make a farm museum. “ What shall we 
put in it,” you will ask. In the first place, as the 
foundation of the farm, I would include specimens 
of every kind of rock found upon it. In some lo¬ 
calities, there will be no rocks, but never mind 
that; take as the next thing, whatever grows nat¬ 
urally upon the soil. Specimens of the various 
wild plants and the wood of all the different kinds 
of trees. You may leave the birds until you get 
older; but the insects, injurious or otherwise, found 
upon the farm will make a most interesting col¬ 
lection. Suppose you, if living upon a wheat farm, 
could see at once, samples of all the different kinds 
of wheat that had been grown on it for the past 20 
years, with the yield per acre given for each, would 
or otherwise, when the proper time comes. There 
is not much music in “Our Cat,” and he knows it, 
and exhibits his wisdom by not trying to be musi¬ 
cal, and in this he puts to shame many human 
beings that are even less gifted in s^veet sounds. 
“ Tiger ” had a terrible fright the other night. We 
have called him Tiger, in the first place, because his 
body is covered with black and white bands that 
very much resemble the stripes upon the back and 
sides of a tiger, and secondly because his disposition 
was so unlike that of a tiger—just as 
we are inclined to call many other 
things by the names of opposite 
qualities. But about the scare 
“Tiger” had. We left the cellar 
window open—one of those small 
windows that is on a level with the 
ground—and the other night while 
“Tiger” was in’the celler a caller 
paid him a visit. I do not know as 
he owed him anything, but a visit 
was paid him. We found “Tiger” 
very much excited in the morning, so 
much so that he made his distress 
known by some of those peculiar 
noises that a cat can utter. They 
were not so loud as they were deep. 
The cellar door was opened, and 
“ Tiger,” though very glad to see the 
rest of the family, was not entirely 
inclined to leave the cellar. A search 
was made, and a large head, some¬ 
thing like that belonging.to a rat, only 
more pointed and several times larger, 
was seen sticking out of a pile of 
boards which stood near the cellar 
door. I am not going to tell you the 
name of this visitor, for when we 
brought him out into the yard he was 
so penitent, or ashamed, or what not, 
of what he had done that he became 
very sleepy, and one might have 
thought him dead. We left the caller 
to himself, and it was not long be¬ 
fore he came to his senses and was 
seen trotting with his long, smooth 
tail behind him, over a hill on his 
way to the woods, where he, it may 
be, was scolded by his wife or mother 
for staying away from home. 
“Tiger,” in the meantime kept a 
safe distance from his visitor, and 
for some time had no desire to go 
into the cellar; indeed he is a little 
shy even to this day. What happen¬ 
ed that night in that cellar will never 
be known. It is very certain, that 
had the window been lower my story 
would have been shorter. 
I cannot tell you the many things 
that “Tiger” does, that we call 
“cute.” His jumping through yOur 
arms when held as a hoop before him 
is amusing to all wiio see'it for the 
first time. But age begins to tell 
upon him, and if his fat increases 
much more, I am afraid “Tiger” 
will not be the terror to rats that he 
now is, or make the whole household 
merry with his playful tricks as in 
the years that are past. Cats arc said 
to have nine lives ; if this is the truth, than we may 
hope to have “Tiger” with us for a long time.— 
Perhaps he is now passing into his second child¬ 
hood, with seven more to come ! and he will be 
like a kitten again. 
The artist has furnished me a “basket of kittens,” 
out of which to select a successor to “our cat,” 
when “Tiger” shall be no more. Where it came 
from I will leave you to guess. It may be that 
it holds a lot of prize kittens from some “ Royal 
Cat Show.” It will be a difficult matter to make 
the choice from such a lively lot of kittens, but 
I will not be selfish, and you may pick out your 
favorite, and I will take the one that is left. If 
some one does not come pretty soon it seems to 
me there will not be any of the kittens left in 
the basket for any one. Uncle Hal. 
that not be more interesting than all the birds in 
all Africa? Begin now, and make a museum of all 
wild and cultivated products of the farm, and you 
will be surprised to see how it will grow, both in 
size and in interest. “ The Doctor.” 
A Basket of Cats and Kittens. 
At first I was inclined to write you simply about 
one cat, and call the title of this article Our Cat. 
There were some good reasons for doing this, but it 
looked too selfish. Iknow “ our cat ” better than 
any other cat in the wide world, and it is also a fact 
that this same cat thinks more of me than does any 
other “pussey” with which I have any acquaint¬ 
ance. I have known “ our cat,” since it was a very 
little kitten, and have spoken kind words to it for 
many a day, and held it in my lap when any other 
member of the Cat Family would have been left out 
in the cold. I like “ our cat,” because it is bright 
aud quick—much more so than the ordinary cat. 
How much of this show of wisdom is due to its bring¬ 
ing up, I must leave others to judge. “ Our Cat ” 
does not talk, simply because no cat’s tongue is so 
constructed that, it can combine the sounds of 
human speech ; but he is an attentive listener, and 
always tries to say something either of satisfaction 
