356 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[September, 
under the edges of the carpets, making holes near 
the margins. The larva are about three-sixteenths 
of an inch long, and clothed with dark hairs, those 
at the tail forming a sort of a pencil. The most 
effective remedy seems to be the passing of a hot 
flat iron over a folded sheet, which has been wet 
and laid along the edges of the carpet. An abun¬ 
dance of steam is thus formed, which, descending, 
kills the “ worms,” or moths, as they are generally 
called. When the insects have infested articles of 
clothing, these may be put into a tight box, and 
some benzine poured in, the vapor of which will 
soon destroy all the moths. The full-grown insect 
is a beetle, and should be destroyed whenever met 
with. It is about one-eighth of an inch long, and 
handsomely marked with scarlet, black, and white. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Lessons at Home. 
Sometimes it is very inconvenient to send chil¬ 
dren to school, so that their chance for early educa¬ 
tion depends upon the parents. Some find it a 
pleasure to teach their children, while others con¬ 
sider it the hardest kind of work. Much de¬ 
pends upon the disposition of the child, there being 
a great difference in their natural inclinations. All 
children really love to learn. That is, they love to 
know such things as seem to them worth knowing, 
and often the judgment is a very childish one. 
Some can not see the use of the letters of the alpha¬ 
bet, or why they should learn the multiplication 
table, and though you explain their use, they se¬ 
cretly believe that they could get through the 
world without them, and I sometimes wish that 
they could. I have taught my children at home a 
good deal, even when free schools that were called 
good were close at baud. I found that they could 
keep up with their classes, or with children of their 
own age, without spending more than half the 
time in study that children spend in school, and so 
they had more time for play and for that domestic 
education which goes under the head of “ helping 
mother.” The hardest thing about it is to train 
them, especially the ones who want all play, to the 
habit of going regularly to their lessons, whatever 
may be the enticements elsewhere. A mother, as 
usually situated, can not “ keep school ” while 
carrying on her household employments. The 
children must learn to study without her. Rollo’s 
mother (who does not know the Rollo of Jacob 
Abbott’s excellent Rollo books ?) mauaged this 
matter well. Rollo had already learned to “ read, 
write, and cipher ” alone, but was not yet ten years 
old. His mother gave him a desk in a pleasant 
corner, where he could keep his books, slate, pens, 
ink, and papers safe and orderly. She expected 
him to spend a certain time there every day, while 
she gave no attention to him. I believe it was two 
hours. I forget just how the time was divided, 
but arithmetic and writing were the chief divisions. 
At the end of his study time, or as soon as conven¬ 
ient, his mother looked over what he had done, ex¬ 
plaining to him and questioning him as she saw 
that he ueeded, and pointing out his work for the 
next day. If he could not do the work that came 
next in order in his arithmetic, or which his mother 
had marked out for him (she did not tell him “ how 
far to take ”), he filled out his arithmetic time by 
practising examples that he did understand. In 
the writing hour he wrote whatever he chose, 
often writing letters to his mother, or father, or 
Jonas, or cousin Lucy, and sometimes copying, 
flis mother looked this over, giving criticisms and 
suggestions. They taught him that legibility was 
the one thing especially needful in writing, and 
that the particular fashion of the letters was of 
small account compared with this. 
1 have been much interested in an account of the 
revolution in the- schools of Quincy, Mass., under 
the influence of Charles Francis Adams. Few text 
books or “ systems ” are used there now. Inter¬ 
esting books of history and science are read instead 
of “Readers,” and from this reading , carefullg at¬ 
tended to, are learned, not only the facts communi¬ 
cated by the words read, but grammar, spelling, 
and rhetoric ; besides a greater interest is kept up. 
Something' About Books. 
In teaching our children at home, we can follow 
suggestions of this kind more fully than teachers 
in public schools are able to. For children of ten 
years or more, at least for those who have learned 
to read with some fluency, there are excellent 
books that might better be learned by simple read¬ 
ing, with attention, than by committing lessons to 
memory. Miss Hall’s Geographies are very good 
for this purpose. They tell about “ Our World ” 
in a very interesting manner. “ Little Lucy’s Won¬ 
derful Globe ” is the best book I know of to start 
an interest in geography among very little ones. It 
should be read with a globe, if possible, and very 
good small ones can be got for $1.50. This book 
should be read aloud two or three times by mamma, 
a chapter at a time, pointing out on the globe the 
country mentioned. Then comes Miss Hall’s first 
book, also read aloud by mamma to the younger 
ones, but no harm is done if children learn little or 
no geography until they are old enough to read 
this book for themselves. It is more important 
that they should learn to observe things immedi¬ 
ately about them—to take an interest in the growth 
of plants and habits of animals, etc. 
I find Felter’s First Arithmetic the best I have 
seen for beginners. The slate-work takes them 
along easily, with little trouble to me. Then comes 
(with us) Lydia Nash’s Table Book and Rudiments. 
I have not been able to give my children at home 
good desk-room and regular study hours. I often 
wish I could see some capable person “step into 
my shoes,” and organize my work of various kinds, 
with a baby (bless it!) under three years of age, al¬ 
ways one of the component parts ; organize it so 
that it would move along from day to day with all 
the ends kept up even, and all done decently and 
in order. With my very moderate abilities, and 
lack of financial resources, .1 have not been able to 
avoid a considerable “helter-skelter.” But I did 
begin to feel much encouraged last winter when I 
saw three children go regularly to their lessons 
soon after breakfast, learning them somehow, in 
spite of baby’s interruptions and mamma’s sick 
days, reciting to each other sometimes, but, some¬ 
how, making progress. At our house, the health 
and happiness of the children are valued above any 
mental precocity. 
Summer House-Keeping- Made Easy. 
Not every family can keep house with so little 
heat and labor during the warmest summer months 
as the one I shall tell about. It is not a system 
that could be adopted by the farmer’s family in the 
midst of haying and harvest, but even farmers’ 
families may find suggestive aid from this report, 
and many a small family in town may go and do 
likewise in some respects. 
There are regularly five members in the family, 
the youngest a year and a half old, he being the 
only masculine member. To save fire and heat, it 
is the plan to have only one warm meal a day, the 
breakfast; but on washing, ironing, and baking days 
there is usually a warm dinner. Unless there is a 
fire at noon, the dishes are all washed together once 
a day—except the goblets and knives.—“ I thought 
cold dinners were not healthy,” says a neighbor. 
That depends chiefly upon the materials of which 
the dinner is made. If the usual meat and vege¬ 
tables are replaced by an extra supply of pie and 
cake, they are decidedly unhealthy. But this fam¬ 
ily manages otherwise, and less pie and cake are 
eaten under the present system than formerly. Not 
a pie has been made or eaten in the house since the 
summer system went into operation, some months 
ago, and much less cake and butter are used. (It 
is not my owu table and bill of fare that I am re¬ 
porting, but I happen to know all about it.) The 
three women of the family are all workers, and 
have good appetites, without any particular crav¬ 
ings or sense of lack at present. The body is nour¬ 
ished by the food eaten, because it contains good 
nerve and muscle food. It is palatable, and is 
eaten with a relish, which leaves no call for salads, 
condiments, or sweetmeats. Fruit is used, but not 
extravagantly, seldom more than once a day. It is 
the most expensive item; acid fruit is much ex¬ 
tolled as a medicine, a corrective of bad conditions 
of the digestive apparatus. But keep your liver 
and stomach in order by plain and wholesome fare, 
and you need not use fruit as a medicine , though 
you may gladly eat it as food, more or less, as the 
appetite and purse agree. Beefsteak comes in 
sometimes for breakfast, but usually as a surprise, 
and then it is remarked “how little meat we eat,” 
and one and another testifies, “I do not miss it at 
all,” or, “I never think of wanting it.” 
Well, there is always nice white yeast bread and 
good butter, and sweet milk. There is, besides, 
some preparation of graham flour or oatmeal, and 
these form the staple, the most nourishing part of 
the meal. The oatmeal (from Canada) is always in 
the form of mush, either hot or cold. It is soaked 
over night, and cooked for breakfast in a farina 
kettle. The long soaking makes it cook quicker 
than otherwise. Various dishes can be prepared 
from oatmeal, but iu the family I mention the 
mush, eaten simply with good, rich milk (thin, 
sweet cream is best) is so much liked, that no one 
has cared to try any other way. Graham is pre¬ 
pared as gems, the flour mixed with buttermilk or 
sour milk (in either case the proportions, carefully 
observed, of one level teaspoonful of soda to two 
teacupfuls of the milk), with very little salt, and 
a tablespoonful of sugar added. These ingre¬ 
dients are mixed quickly ar d thoroughly together 
(the soda dissolved in a little warm water), and 
baked iu gem pans, but the same dough can be 
baked in a cake tin as a short-cake. The graham 
is sometimes in the form of yeast bread, and some¬ 
times as mush or graham pudding. Persons often 
find that oatmeal and graham mush do not agree 
with them, because they eat so much sugar upon 
them, and they can hardly believe that these dishes 
are delicious when eaten simply with good milk, 
especially if the milk is thin cream ! All good 
mush is nice sliced when cold, and fried on a hot- 
buttered griddle, and in this way it often comes to 
my friends’ breakfast table—not fried hard, but 
browned on both sides, eaten with milk, butter, or 
meat. The various vegetables of the season have 
their place at the breakfast table or at dinner, on 
the days when there is a fire at noon for something 
besides cooking. “ Granula,” a new-fangled prepa¬ 
ration of wheat, very easily prepared, very nourish¬ 
ing, and very good, comes in conveniently quite 
often. When fresh fruit can not be had, my friends 
use mostly the best canned fruit, the California 
pears and peaches being most expensive. This 
simple style of living was not undertaken for the 
sake of economizing money, so much as for the 
sake of saving time and strength and comfort 
(during a season when a fire is uncomfortable), and 
also in the interest of “ high thinking,” for plain 
living and high thinking are supposed to go to¬ 
gether. That may be because plain living (if it is 
at the same time nourishing) keeps the body in 
good order, and leaves the mind a fair chance to 
do good work and have a good time. 
A Few Small Arts. 
Mashed Potato. —To make it light and delicate, 
beat it with a spoon after you have seasoned it. 
Mash it well, salting it first. It is often made too 
salt for my taste, and as I can not take out the salt, 
it sometimes seems to me it would be quite fair to 
put iu only a little, and those who do not care to 
taste anything else but salt in their food can add it 
at their pleasure. Butter is sometimes added when 
the potato is mashed, but I think thin cream the 
best of anything, and next to this good sweet milk. 
Now stir all thoroughly together, beating it well 
with a large, stiff spoon. The product is some¬ 
thing quite superior to the lumpy, poorly seasoned 
mashed potato often found. A dish may be called 
“well-seasoned” when only enough good season¬ 
ing is used, and that properly put into or upon it. 
To Stone Raisins Easily.— Pour boiling water 
over them, and drain it off. This loosens them, 
and they come out clean and with ease. 
To Peel Any Kind of Fruit Easily.— Pour 
boiling water over it, and this loosens the skin. 
To Remove Bitterness from the Skins of 
Wild Plums. —Pour boiling water over them, 
enough to cover them, and remove them quickly 
before they crack open and lose their juice. Do 
