ladies’ department. 
223 
Caries 1 apartment. 
BOOK-FARMING—THE SHREW-MOLE AND 
CUT-WORM. 
Old Ladies’ Diary .—April 7th. My whole 
household in open rebellion !—What is to be done ? 
Not to be vexed is not to be woman; but not to be 
amused is out of my power. It is well for me that 
Betsey and Peter do not write diaries, for I fear that 
I should make a sorry figure in their account of to¬ 
day. Betsey decidedly disapproves of making soap 
of potash, and wasting the ashes by sprinkling 
them on the grass; and is determined not to do it 
if she can help it. “ The soap is not so clear and 
nice looking.” I know it, Betsey; but then it never 
fails, and takes so much less time and trouble. 
«* We never fail when the ley is good.” No, but 
the ley is often too weak, and good soap cannot be 
made without strong ley, and bad soap is a great 
waste and disappointment. “ We always have good 
soap when the ashes are kept dry and are not 
wasted, and when the ley-tubs are carefully set.” 
But the contrary is too often the case, and the soap 
spoiled; besides, I want the ashes for the early pas¬ 
ture-lot, and so should you, for no one is more fond 
of early grass-butter than you are. “ Ashes for 
manure,” grumbled Betsey. “No one shall ever 
catch me farming from books—now book-farming 
is in fashion, all old ways are to be put aside.” Do 
you remember, said I, what your grandfather used 
to say ? He believed that ashes were clover-seed. 
I think, too, that we gained something worth re¬ 
membering when we learned from books to dry and 
pack our hams before the skipper-fly made its ap¬ 
pearance ; and that charcoal is the best thing to 
pack them in. We have had no skippers in them 
since then. Betsey went her way looking as peo¬ 
ple always do when they do not choose to be con¬ 
vinced, and I went to the kitchen. Sally, did you 
put the ham on to cook, before breakfast, as I de¬ 
sired you. “ No, ma’am, I had time to make the 
pie-crusts, and I thought it better to have them ready 
whenever it should be convenient to bake them, 
and there is plenty of time to boil the ham before 
dinner.” 0, Sally ! Will you never learn that an 
old ham should never boil ? It should only simmer, 
and then it takes hours to cook. An old ham boils 
hard and dry, but simmers tender and juicy—and 
have I not shown to you twenty times, that pie¬ 
crust becomes flat and heavy if not baked as soon 
as the pies are made, and heavy crust is neither 
good nor wholesome ? The ham must not be 
spoiled by hasty boiling, so we must see for some¬ 
thing else for dinner. 
An hour was thus wasted in making up a dinner, 
and good humor lost for the day. I then went to 
see if my out-door directions had been better at¬ 
tended to. My raspberries have been mismanaged 
for some years, and now are failing sadly. Expe¬ 
rience has proved that rotten wood or leaves mixed 
with sand is the best manure for them, and that 
equal proportions of rotten wood sand and good 
garden loam, is the best for green-house plants, 
particularly roses, Cape jasmines, and Daphnes. 
Rotten wood must therefore be of great value to 
mix in the manure-heap. A quantity of shavings 
left by the carpenter were ordered to be spread over 
the barn-yard and pig-pen. George, have you 
spread the shavings? “ No, marm, I met neighbor 
Prejudice, and he says they will do more harm than 
good, that they will soak up the water and keep it 
always wet, and that we had better dig a drain to 
dry the yard.” Then where am I to get the wood 
for my next year’s compost heap ? Mr. Prejudice 
says stable-manure is best for everything, and we 
will have plenty to spare for the garden and all you 
want for the flowers, and if you wish rotten wood 
we can get it from the woods. And so lose a day 
in hauling earth from the woods, besides the drain¬ 
ings from the stable and manure-heap, because a 
neighbor chooses to think for me. “ I can do it, if 
you say so,” said he, “ but it is of no use.” Then 
do it, said I, leaving him looking like a martyr. 
I next proceeded to the garden, hoping to be 
more successful with my old friend Peter, though a 
slight suspicion crossed my mind that he had been 
at the bottom of the rebellion, for he has a thorough 
contempt for all book-learning , and tolerates no¬ 
thing in the literary line but the village newspaper 
and the old-fashioned almanac with that grotesque 
frontispiece, the mystic man surrounded by his 
attendants the “Ram, the Bull, and Heavenly 
Twins,”—for which I, too, have a lurking kindness, 
remembering my childish faith in all the signs good 
and bad—believing if it did not rain or snow, when 
the almanac said it would, that it was an accident, 
and should have done so, no matter from which 
quarter the w'ind blew. Therefore, when I told 
Peter to plant the potatoes to-morrow, and he repli¬ 
ed that it was not the right sign and we must wait 
until next week, I was not much surprised at the 
objection, though not inclined to yield; but was 
sure of obedience when I hastened to save the life 
of a mole which he turned out with his spade, and 
was preparing to kill. Oh, don’t kill it, said I, 
it is one of our best friends, don’t you know that 
they feed on insects, and eat the grubs, and cut¬ 
worms, and all those destructive pests that do us so 
much injury ? “ No, marm, I don’t, but I do know 
that they spoil the grass-plot, and eat up all the 
hyacinths and tulip-roots.” You are mistaken, 
Peter, they live on the worms and grubs that des¬ 
troy our flower-roots, and until we can find some 
better way of catching them, we must let the moles 
live, and not mind their ugly marks across the grass; 
when the destructive insects are gone, the moles 
will leave us too. This was too much for Peter to 
bear, he did not believe a word of the moles eating 
the cut-worms and not the roots, and to be expected 
to plant potatoes when the sign was up and not in 
the fish, was out of all reason. He was driven to 
desperation, and throwing down his spade stood 
erect and said, “Then, marm, if you will neither 
let me kill the moles, nor plant the potatoes when 
there will be a chance of their yielding a good crop, 
you must get some one to do your work who has 
more book-learnftig than I have.” Now this was 
not what either Peter or I intended, so like a wise 
general, I felt that “ discretion was the better part 
of valor,” and made a prudent retreat. I knew that 
the potatoes would grow if planted next week, but 
we could not bring the moles to life again. Oh, 
said I, I don’t care when you plant the potatoes ; 
but I will not have the moles killed until we get rid 
of the cut-worms. The old man picked up his 
