1880 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
329 
“Just the Thing I Wanted,” 
says a subscriber who has already received and thor¬ 
oughly tested one of the new Beach’s Folding 
Fret Saws. He says: “ It does its work so well, 
is so handy to use, is so strong, stands so firmly, and 
then folds so quickly and so closely that it is out of the 
way in a minute. Then it is so cheap, and mine cost 
only 30 cents for bringing it 9S miles. I would not take 
$10 for it if I could not get another. I want to thank 
the Editors of the American Agriculturist very much for 
taking hold of it, and bringing it before their readers. I 
hope every boy and man will have one.”_This is talk¬ 
ing pretty strongly, but not more so than the apparatus 
deserves. A good many others talk in the same way. In 
answer to letters of inquiry, we answer that it runs true 
and steady ; that the table is tilted very easily by simply 
turning a screw, that is, the table holding the wood to 
be sawed can be inclined to one side or the other, so 
that the Saw will cut at any desired angle, for beveling. 
The Saw cuts so smoothly that inlaid work is very beau¬ 
tifully made, even to very fine lines. The Saw is 
strained or kept tight by the simple action of the two 
arms. (See description and engraving on page 257, last 
month.) A great commendation is, that with all its ad¬ 
vantages, the whole apparatus is supplied (cased for car¬ 
riage) for the low price of $2.25, and it folds so closely 
as to cost but little for carriage, and requires very little 
room for storage when not in use. Those who prefer to 
save the price ($2.25), can obtain one as a Premium for 
sending four subscribers to the American Agriculturist 
at $1.50 a year, or eight subscribers for half a year at 75 
cts. Subscriptions can begin at any time—though it is 
preferable to begin July 1st or January 1st. We can al 
ways send back numbers from January 1st, 1880, or any 
desired numbers or volumes for twenty-three years past, 
as we keep electrotype plates for printing from. Old 
or new volumes or numbers are at the same price. 
“Little's Chemical Fluid” is the name of a 
sheep dip that has been much used in England, and has 
found favor with those who have tried it in this country. 
It is free from arsenic and other mineral poisons, being 
largely composed of those coal tar products that are well 
known to be destructive of insect life. 
blending Tin and Other Ware.— The use of 
a ■ soldering iron” is one of the accomplishments that 
every boy may easily acquire, and should he afterwards 
live in the country or elsewhere, at a distance from a 
tinsmith, he will find frequent occasion to use his skill. 
There are several contrivances to aid those who cannot 
use the soldering iron in mending tin-ware. One of 
these, the “solder-wire,” was noticed several "months 
ago, another, suited to mending larger holes, is called 
the ‘ Copper Patch Plate.” This is a sheet of copper, 
thin enough to be easily cut with ordinary shears; one 
side ot it has a rather thick coat of solder, over which is a 
film of rosin. To mend a hole in a pan or other vessel, a 
patch is cut from the plate, enough larger than the hole 
to extend for some distance all around it. The surface 
to which the patch is to adhere being scraped clean, that 
is put in its place, and a heated poker or other iron is 
held upon it until the solder melts and adheres to the 
surface of the vessel. To make a good job, take care to 
fit the patch well to the surface, so that it touches in 
every part; scrape the surface bright and clean, and do 
not touch and soil it before the patch is in place. 
Beautiful Iron Work.— The catalogue of the 
Racine (Wis.) Iron Works is a most interesting pamphlet, 
as it shows the great perfection that has been reached by 
our iron founders. This company makes a vast number 
of wares used in window gardening, such as Brackets, 
Pot Stands, Window Boxes, Ferneries, etc., in which 
tasteful design increases their beauty without detracting 
irom their utility or increasing their cost. 
ITIllk Cans—Keep Clean.— Much of the success 
of many in butter-making depends upon the thorough¬ 
ness with which they cleanse their milk cans, pails, pans, 
etc., in fact, all the utensils that arein any way connected 
with the milk and cream Some persons cannot makegood 
butter, because they are careless in all the operations. 
Invalid Chairs.— The best place for a very sick 
person is the bed, but the convalescent finds a change to 
a chair of some kind, especially one of the modern invalid 
chairs, is a great relief. It often happens that a sprain, or 
't may be a rheumatic attack, or other trouble, will inter 
fere with the locomotion of one who is not otherwise dis¬ 
abled. In such cases a chair in which one can propel 
himself about by the use of the hands is a great conveni¬ 
ence. Cases like these, not to mention the many in 
which the person is permanently crippled, have led to the 
invention of a great variety of chairs which are known by 
the general term of “ Invalid Chairs.” These often show 
much ingenuity in their propelling arrangements, as well 
as in their adjustments, which allow of a change to a 
great variety of positions according to the desire of the 
occupant. No chairs of this kind have had a greater pop¬ 
ularity than those made by Herbert S. Smith, a concern 
which father and son have advertised in the American 
Agriculturist these many years. This is the only estab¬ 
lishment in this country, and probably the only one in 
any country that devotes itself to making such chairs ex¬ 
clusively. Where these arc the only wares made, one is 
likely to find a greater variety, and also to get styles to 
suit particular cases, than where the work is only a part 
of a general furniture business. 
Nuts and Nubbins. 
Hard to beat—an old carpet. 
A floral swell—the dande-lion. 
Something gnu—a horned horse. 
Do ships on speaking terms lie to. 
Spring holds the rains this season. 
The king of Greece—Oleomargarine. 
Lap of luxury—when the cat gets cream. 
A plant that flourishes in winter—The cow-slip. 
An underta" er gets a living where another man dies. 
A gentleman named his dog Penny, because it was one sent 
to him. 
Cats have no fixed political belief. They are usually on 
the fence. 
A man is like an egg. You can not tell whether or not he 
is good until he is “ broke!” 
An advertisement for a “ saddle-horse for a lady of about 
950 pounds ” is going the rounds. 
We hear of men sowing wild oats, but whoever heard of a 
woman sowing anything but tares ? 
A Western paper heads the marriage of a bachelor of 57 
years. “ Another Old Landmark Gone.” 
' Another old settler gone !' exclaimed the cook when she 
tossed the egg-shell out of the coffee-pot. 
" Look out for the locomotive when the bell rings,’ is 
painted in large letters, so that he who reads may run. 
A Meriden man has a Bible M2 years old. Strange how 
long a Bible may be made to last by temperate usage! 
'■ Gentleman,” said a farmer, writing to the chairman of 
an agricultural society, “ put me down on your list of cattlw 
for a calf.” 
-Artemus Ward once began a lecture by saying: “Ladies 
and gentlemen, I possess a gigantic intellect, but I haven't 
it with me.” 
Some females have just been arrested in Kentucky for the 
manufacture of illicit whiskey. This is the first recorded 
instance of a woman keeping still. 
Wife: “ But. my dear, I shall catch cold coming down so 
late to let you in.”—Husband : “ Oh, no, my love, I’ll rap 
you up well before you come down.” 
A husband telegraphed to his wife: “ What have you for 
breakfast, and how is the baby?”—The answer came: 
" Buckwheat cakes and the measles.” 
One of the saddest and most vexatious trials that comes 
to a girl when she is married is that she has to discharge her 
mother and depend on a servant girl. 
Photographer: “Now, sir, if you’d look a little less as 
though you had a bill to meet, and a little more as if you'd 
been left a legacy, you'll be a picture.” 
If the deacon will pass the contribution-boxes around on 
the sidewalks they may be able to scatter the crowds of 
loafing young men who stand in front of churches. 
Young ladies who wish to have small mouths are advised 
to repeat this at frequent intervals: “Fanny Finch fried 
five floundering frogs for Francis Fowler’s father.” 
A couple of reporters spent the night in a cell with a man 
who was doomed to be hanged in Connecticut recently, and 
in the morning the prisoner was perfectly willing to die. 
An Irishman who stood for a long time looking at a ship’s 
anchor was ordered away, but refused to go, saying: “ Divil 
a b't will I stir till I see the man that's going to use that 
pick.” 
“ What is worse than freckles ?” asks the New Haven Reg¬ 
ister. “ Corns. They don’t show much when you’re dressed 
up, but then if you keep straight, no fellow can step on your 
freckles.” 
Patient—“ Yes, sir; you are an ignorant blackguard, sir." 
Homcepathic M.D.—“Well, sir, then you’ve come to the 
right person for treatment, as, according to our theory, 
‘ like cures like.’” 
An ingenious observer has discovered that there is a re¬ 
markable resemblance between a baby and wheat, since it 
is first cradled, then “ thrashed,” and finally becomes the 
“ flour ” of the family. 
A little girl who had often heard her mother speak of her 
father, who was quite bald, as being a self-made man, asked 
her one day, if her father was a self-made man, why he 
didn’t put more hair on his head. 
In struggling to make a dull-brained boy understand what 
conscience was, a teacher finally asked: “ What makes you 
uncomfortable after you have done wrong?”—“Father’s 
leather strap,” feelingly replied the boy. 
At an examination for admission to the bar, the question 
was asked: “ What is the rule in Shelley’s case ?”—One of 
the class answered: “ It is the same as in any other man's 
case The law is no respecter of persons.” 
A little girl, aged three, went to church lately to see a 
christening. When, on her return, she was asked what she 
thought of the baby, she replied: “ It was a good baby, it 
did not cry when the gentleman washed its head.” 
It is said that a young lady in Penn Yan, N. Y., wears 
twelve diamond rings on one finger, and the Norristown 
Herald thinks she should also wear a gold band around her 
head to prevent the crack in her skull from widening. 
Smith to Brown, going home from the club in the small 
hours of the morning: “Is awfully late, Brown ; what’ll 
you say to your wife ?”—Brown : “ Oh, not much ; good 
morning, my dear or something of that sort; she'll say the 
rest." 
An Illinois youth, husking corn in a field near the rail¬ 
road, saw a new locomotive, with a red smoke-stack. He 
became frightened, and ran to the house crying: “ That 'ere 
engine is going to bust, sure ; it’s red-hot clean to the top 
of the stovepipe.” 
A young lady who read that it is lucky to pick up a horse¬ 
shoe, happened in a blacksmith shop the other day, and 
picked up one just made. The surprising suddenness and 
piercing shriek with which she dropped it showed that it 
was more than simply lucky. 
“ Is this my train ?” asked a traveller of the Kansas Pacific 
Railroad depot lounger.—“ I don't know, but I guess not,” 
was the doubtful reply. “ I see it’s got the name of the rail¬ 
road company on the side, and I expect it belongs to them. 
Have you lost a train anywhere ?” 
A small boy, boasting of his father’s accomplishments, 
said: “My father can do almost anything; he’s a notar; 
public and he’s an apothecary, and can mend teeth, and hf 
is a doctor, and can mend wagons and things, and can play 
the fiddle ; he’s a jackass at oil trades.” 
“ Do you see that spring over there ?” said a settler in Ar¬ 
kansas to a stranger. “ Well, that's an iron spring, that is: 
and it’s so mighty powerful that the farmer's horses about 
here who drink the water of it never have to be shod. The 
shoes just grow on their feet nat’rally.” 
An Englishman at a hotel in New York asked the clerk if 
there were “oysters in the hotel.”—“Oh, yes, was the an¬ 
swer : “ step right in the restaurant; we don’t keep them in 
the office.”—“Egad!” said Mr. John Bull, “ I think you mis¬ 
understand me, you know: I mean a ’iyster, don't you 
know, a ‘ lift ’—a ‘hellevator’ may be you call it in this coun¬ 
try.” 
The people of a New Hampshire town are so fearfully 
lazy that when the wife of a minister who had just settled 
in that town asked a prominent citizen if the inhabitants 
generally respected the Sabbath and refrained from busi¬ 
ness, replied: “Confound it, ma'am, they don't do enough 
work in a whole week to break the Sabbath, if it was all 
done on that day.”— Post. 
“ Bub, did you ever stop to think,” said a grocer recently, 
as he measured out half a peck of potatoes, “ that these 
potatoes contain sugar, water, ana starch " Noa, 1 
didn’t,” replied the boy, “ but l heard mother say you put 
peas and beans in your coffee, and about a pint of water in 
every quart of milk you sold.” The subject of natural 
philosophy was dropped right there. 
The other day a farmer met a friend, who asked him how 
prospects were out in the country.—” This dry weather is 
just killing everything,” was the doleful reply.—Some hours 
afterward a storm of rain broke over the city, and as the 
farmer ran in and out of the wet his friend said : “ This will 
do good out your way.”—“ May be, may be,” said the farmer, 
“ but it’s mighty rough on them’s got hay out to-day.” 
A clergyman asked Ms Sunday-school: “ With what re- . 
markable weapon did Samson at one time slay a number of 
Philistines? ”—For a while there was no answer; and the 
clergyman, to assist the children a little, commenced tap¬ 
ping his jaw witlf the tip of his finger, at the same time say¬ 
ing, “ What’s this? what's this?”—Quick as thought, a little 
fellow innocently replied, “ The jaw bone of an ass, sir.” 
As P. T. Barnum was selecting a turkey in one of our 
markets, the owner drew his special attention to a large fat 
gobbler. Suspecting it was an antediluvian, Mr. Barnum 
said, with a smile, “ What do you sell that old gentleman 
for?”—With an air of triumph the owner replied, “l sell 
him for a profit.”—“A prophet! Oh, I supposed he was a pa¬ 
triarch,” was the quiet response. The study of sacred histoi y 
terminated. 
Little Edith—“ Mamma, and you think if a person is really 
and truly in love, it would be wicked to deprive her of the 
object of her affections?”—Mamma: "Whv, certainly, Edith, 
dear ; but where in the world did you learn all that ?”—Edith ; 
“I heard you tell it to Mrs. Jinglejaw to day. And, mam¬ 
ma, I’m awfully in love with that loaf of cake in the cup¬ 
board.” Edith and the object of her aflcctions were im¬ 
mediately united. 
Three Irishmen, who had dug a ditch for SI, were quite 
at a loss to know how to divide the pay "aqually.” 
But one of the number had gone to school, and reached di¬ 
vision in the arithmetic, so it was left to him. He did it at 
once, saying: “ It’s aisy enough. Shure, there’s two for you 
two, and two for me, too.” The two received their portion 
with a greatly increased respect for the advantage which 
learning gives to a man 
A sad looking man went into a Burlington drug store. 
“ Can you give me,” he asked, “ something that will drive 
from mv mind the thoughts of sorrow and bitter recollec¬ 
tions ? ” And the druggist nodded and put him up a little 
dose of quinine, and wormwood, and rhubarb, ana epsom 
salts, and a dash of castor oil, and gave it to him, and for 
six months the man couldn’t think of anything in the world 
except new schemes for getting the taste out of his mouth. 
Mr. C-. pastor of a certain church, had been on very 
bad terms with his flock for sometime. Before his contract 
with the parish expired, he was appointed chaplain at the 
state prison. Elated at getting rid of him, the congregation 
came in full numbers to hear his farewell sermon. Great 
was their astonishment, when the reverend gentleman 
chose for his text the following words : “ I go to prepare a 
place for you * * * that where I am, there ye may be 
also.” 
Patrick saw a bull pawing in a field, and thought how 
amusing it would be to jump over, catch him by the horns, 
and rub his nose in the dirt. The idea was so funny that he 
laughed to think of it. The more he thought of it, the funnier 
it seemed, and he determined to do it. Bovus quickly tossed 
him over the fence. Somewhat bruised, Patrick leisurely 
picked himself up, with the very consolatory reflection: 
“ Well, it is a moighty foine thing that I had my laugh 
afoorst,” 
“ Prisoner at the bar,” said the judge to the man on trial 
for murder, “ is there anything you wish to say before sen¬ 
tence is passed upon you ?”—“ Judge,” replied the prisoner, 
solemnly, “ there has been altogether too much said already. 
I knew all along somebody would get hurt if these people 
didn’t keep their mouths shut. It might as well be me, per¬ 
haps, as anybody else. Drive on judge, and give us as little 
sentiment as you can get along on. I can stand hanging, 
but I hate gush.” 
“ William, do vou know why you are like a donkey ?”— 
“ Like a donkey ?” echoed William, opening his eyes wide; 
“ no, I don’t.”—” Do you give it up ?’’—“ I do.”—“ Because 
vour better-half is stubbornness itself.”—” That’s not bad. 
Ha! ha! I'll give that to my wife when I get home.”—” My 
dear,” he asked, as he sat down to supper, “ do you know- 
why I am like a donkey ?”—He waited a moment, expecting 
his wife to give it up, but she didn’t. She looked at him 
somewhat commiseratingly as she answered: “ I suppose 
because you were born so.” 
A web dressed lady called at a carpet warehouse and asked 
to look at some carpets. The goods were shown, everv pat¬ 
tern in the shop being spread out for examination. After 
looking at everything about the place, and driving some 
very close bargains in the matter of price, the ladv selected 
a carpet for each room in her house, running up a bill which 
filled the salesman’s heart with joy. When all was com¬ 
pleted, he asked where the carpets were to be sent. The 
lady replied, without hesitation, that she would call and let 
him know. “You see,” she added, “ my husband has just 
bought a piece of ground, and talks of soon building a house 
on if. If he does, you know, I shall want some new carpets, 
and then I will call and order these, as I know the cost.” 
