234 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
accumulated in their labor. The men, when 
first employed, consider all this scraping and 
brushing unnecessary, but they feel obliged to 
follow Mr. Brown’s example and instructions, 
and find their self-respect so increased by their 
neatness, that they soon do voluntarily what 
they commenced reluctantly, and if they acci¬ 
dentally soil the clean floor, they offer an apol¬ 
ogy- 
The breakfast has been finished with the 
greatest satisfaction, and the men go forth to 
the toil of the day. The women roll up their 
sleeves, put on their big aprons, and prepare for 
their appropriate duties. Anne Hope. 
Canter. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
BOY’S LETTER No. 3. 
The following letter was very well written, 
and contained only two or three mistakes in di¬ 
viding the sentences properly with periods and 
capitals: 
Kingston, New-Jersey, June 6 , 1854. 
Messrs. Editors: —It is with pleasure that I 
see you have devoted a small portion of your 
excellent paper to us boys. Now, I think that 
a great many people, including some editors, 
think that they must not notice the boys. I 
wish all such had heard Dr. Potts, of New-York, 
speak at the annual exhibition of Edge Hill 
School, near here, last week. His subject was, 
Maxima deictus puero reverentia , which is lit¬ 
erally translated thus, Our greatest reverence is 
to the boy due. You may think that this is 
going too far. We thought so ourselves, until 
the Doctor showed us what was intended in his 
subject. He said that he did not intend to rev¬ 
erence the noisy little urchin in the street, but 
the upright and gentlemanly boy who was pre¬ 
paring to take, in a few years, a respectable and 
firm stand on the platform of usefulness. He 
also gave us some good advice about our habits, 
which we form now, for said he, “ as the twig 
is bent so the tree inclines.” I agree with the 
Delaware boy on education. I think our farm¬ 
ers ought to be educated better, and our doctors 
and lawyers more thoroughly. It belongs to 
you, Messrs. Editors, to stir up an interest on 
this subject, for every farmer’s boy should have 
an education—not necessarily a collegiate educa¬ 
tion, but a good common school education. If 
one cannot get this at the common school, there 
ought to be a reform among those schools. But 
from what I have said, you may think me too 
forward. If so, please excuse me, and I would 
assure you that I know my place, for father is 
a great advocate, for the old maxim, “ Children 
should be seen and not heard.” You might ask 
me, who I am; and what I am doing? These 
I will answer. I am the son of one of your old¬ 
est subscribers, and at present I am tending 
school. I walk four miles to school and four 
back every day, and when there is no pressing 
work to do in the fields, I work in the garden. 
I think that I can show you the largest radishes, 
cabbage plants, and beets, and the earliest peas 
and beaus of any other garden around here. 
Our grains look uncommonly fine this season, 
but the present wet weather seems likely to 
strike the wheat with the rust, which would be 
very bad, for I think that grain is high enough 
already, without any misfortune coming to the 
present crop. I think farming is the business 
now, for with wheat at two dollars, corn at one 
dollar, and oats at fifty cents, they cannot help but 
make money. I must close. I hardly know 
whether to send this to you or not. Please ex¬ 
cuse my mistakes and writing, for I have done 
my best. Yours with respect, 
Will Welling. 
THE CRUEL BOY. 
There was once a little boy that delighted to 
torment and kill flies and little animals. Was 
he not very cruel ? What do you think became 
of this boy when he was grown up to be a man ? 
Did he grow merciful and kind as he grew 
older? Oh, no. History tells us otherwise. 
When a man, he became emperor of Rome. 
Then how much good he could have done, if 
he had only wanted to. Though very kind in 
the beginning of his reign, his natural character 
after a while began to show itself. 
Nero, for this was his name, loved to do evil. 
I will tell you some of his wicked actions. He 
hilled his own wife , and ordered his own mother 
to he assassinated. He enjoyed cruel sports of 
all kinds; and the groans and sufferings of his 
fellow-creatures afforded him rich entertainment. 
He had heard the story of the burning of an¬ 
cient Troy, and wishing to see how it looked, 
he ordered the city of Rome to be set on fire. 
Then the traitor placed himself on a high tower 
that overlooked the conflagration, and sung to 
his lyre the story of burning Troy. As if all 
this was not enough, he laid the blame on the 
poor Christains, and they were tortured in the 
most horrid manner, to confess a crime they had 
not committed. 
Such wicked people do not generally live to 
be old. Nero’s subjects at length grew weary 
of him, and condemned him to be thrown from 
the Tarpeian rock and dashed to pieces. To 
avoid so dreadful a death, Nero killed himself, in 
the thirty-second year of his age. 
Now, when I see a little boy inclined to tor¬ 
ment flies and other helpless creatures, I am 
apt to think of Nero. The Bible says, “ To the 
merciful, thou wilt show .thyself merciful.” 
Does any child think that the great God, whose 
tender mercies are over all his works, and who 
watches the dying sparrows, will not be angry 
with all those who in any way abuse his crea¬ 
tures ? 
All bad habits grow stronger as we grow 
older. They are like the snow-ball set in mo¬ 
tion by a group of playful children, very small 
at first; but as the ball is rolled on and on, it 
grows with every turn, till at last it becomes so 
large and sightly, that the passing traveler 
stops to look at it. 
Children must show kindness to every crea¬ 
ture, if they would win the love of that great 
being who has them so completely in his power. 
—American Messenger. 
.Scnij-foolu 
FISH STORY. 
The amusing anecdote under the above cap¬ 
tion in our last, has drawn forth the following 
true story from a humorous correspondent: 
Some years ago, a party of men were travel¬ 
ing on a canal-boat in Ireland, it happened to 
be Friday, which is a partial fast day in the Ro¬ 
man Catholic church, and of course fish was the 
principal dish served at dinner. A Catholic 
priest took the head of the table, and he catered 
so well for himself and his neighboring co-reli¬ 
gionists, that the fine fish was rapidly disap¬ 
pearing, to the dismay of the heterodox part of 
the company below the salt. One of the latter 
at length resolved to perpetrate a coup d' etat 
for his stomach’s sake, and drawing the dish to¬ 
wards him by a rapid movement, he remarked, 
“ Bad luck to ye thin, do you think no one has 
got a sowl to be saved but yourselves.” 
Affectionate. —There is an inscription on a 
tomb at La Pointe, Lake Superior, which reads 
as follows : “ John Phillips accidentally shotas 
a mark of affection by his brother.” 
REMEDY FOR SMUT IN WHEAT. 
Messrs. Editors: —I see a writer in the Coun¬ 
try Gentleman , asks for a preventive for smut 
or fungus in wheat. This, together with the 
frequent inquiries made by our northern friends, 
in the wheat-growing regions, induces me to 
give you one that is simple, cheap, never failing. 
It is simply a soak in water in which blue vitriol 
has been dissolved, in the following proportions: 
For each 4 or 5 bushels wheat, dissolve 1 lb. 
blue vitriol in water, sufficient to cover and pro¬ 
perly soak the wheat; let it remain in this soak 
20 to 24 hours—sow immediately after taken 
out of the soak. Pursue this annually and pro¬ 
perly, and my word for it you will never more 
hear complaint of smut in wheat, however badly 
the seed from which it was grown may have 
been mixed with smut. This is the discovery 
(at least in this State,) of an old and successful 
planter and wheat grower of this district; and 
has been tested many years, always successfully, 
by hundreds, yea, thousands. Some say this 
soak also effectually eradicates chess, in a few 
years, but of this I am not fully satisfied. But 
when properly applied and used, that it is a 
sure and effectual remedy for smut, there is not 
the shadow of a doubt. 
If new, or untried, with you, get a single 
farmer to make the experiment. He, you, or 
the country generally, will never regret it.— B. 
Steioart, in Country Gentlemen. 
THE TRUE ELIXIR OF LIFE. 
SOME GOOD THOUGHTS. 
It is the remark of travelers, that Americans 
are more frequently victims of impaired diges¬ 
tion than any other civilized people. We be¬ 
lieve medical statistics assert the same fact. It 
is worth while, therefore, to inquire whether 
this state of things is unavoidable; whether, in 
other words, it is the result of climate, or is 
caused by our own excesses. 
That impaired digestive organs are enemies 
to long life need hardly, we suppose, be re¬ 
peated. The stomach is the great altmbic, so 
to speak, in which all animal vitality is dis'illed. 
If its powers are weakened, if it does its work 
indifferently, health is nearly impossible, and 
protracted years utterly so. All persons who 
have attained unusual longevity, have notori¬ 
ously possessed good digestive organs. Thomas 
Parr, who died in the reign of James the First 
of England, at the extraordinary age of one hun¬ 
dred and fif y-two, was proverbial for his sound 
stomach. So was Henry Jenkins, who lived to 
the still greater age of one hundred and sixty- 
nine. Effingham, who died at one hundred and 
forty-four—Slender, who died at one hundred 
and three, and numerous others, who died when 
over a century old, were proverbial for their 
excellent appetites and their capital digestion. 
But the advantages of a good stomach are not- 
confined merely to the possessor. It is now 
well understood that the qualities of parents are 
more or less transmissible to children. Conse¬ 
quently, the parent who has good digestive or¬ 
gans is more likely to have progeny similarly 
favored, than one who is the victim of dyspep¬ 
sia. With the Parrs, for example, a good sto¬ 
mach being hereditary, long life was a common 
thing; for a great grandson of the famous an- j 
cestor died at Cork, Ireland, towards the close 
of the last century, at the age of one hundred 
and three. A sound digestion, moreover, is ne¬ 
cessary to happiness. Dyspeptic people are 
confessedly irritable. More persons owe fits of |, 
mental depression to a weak digestion than to 
any other cause. It is amazing how much ig¬ 
norance there is on this subject. Hundreds, 
who suppose their stomachs to be in perfect 
health, have the organs of digestion slightly im¬ 
paired, and should attribute to this cause their 
unaccountable heaviness after eating, and their 
periods of profound dejection. The hilarity of 
early youth, when we feel as if we trod on air, 
comes from a perfect stomach. Could we re- 
