AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
311 
was then interested in a small store in a neigh¬ 
boring town. I was delighted to see him, and 
to hear of his prosperity, and gave him a cor¬ 
dial invitation to my house, but he pleaded 
want of time, and departed. On reaching home 
in the evening, my wife was much pleased to 
hear that her young friend the “Strawberry 
Boy” was living and well, but felt rather slighted 
at his not calling to see her. 
Two years ago, when I saw him again, he 
was comparatively rich, worth some fifty thou¬ 
sand dollars; had married the daughter of a 
late distinguished lawyer, and had purchased, 
and was toen residing in his fine mansion, in 
one of the cities immediately opposite our own. 
Occupied in business of public trust and res¬ 
ponsibility, he lives respected and esteemed by 
all his neighbors. He is well known to many 
of our citizens of Cincinnati. With all this 
prosperity, he has the good sense to remember 
that he was once the “ Little Strawberry Boy,” 
and, no doubt, feels prouder of being the archi¬ 
tect of his own fortune, from that foundation, 
than if he had inherited ten times as much from 
his ancestors.— Young Reaper. 
- *- 0 « - 
“WHAT’S THE USE V ’ 
“Where’s Sam?” asked Joe Dennet, coming 
into Mr. Powers’ yard, and seeing Mr. Powers 
at the door. “Up in his study,” answered 
Sam’s mother. “And where’s that?” asked 
Joe; “ I did not know that Sam had a study.” 
Sam’s mother smiled, and told him to go in the 
garden, and may be he would find it. He did 
so, and shouted “ Sam, where are you ?” “ Hal¬ 
loo?” said a voice from above. Joe looked up, 
and saw his friend perched in the crotch of an 
apple-tree, with slate and book in hand. 
“ Come,” said Joe, “ the boys are going a 
boating, and want you to go.” “ Can’t” an¬ 
swered Sam, “ I am trying to master this alge¬ 
bra; we all missed to-day.” “ Why, it is Wed¬ 
nesday afternoon, and that is our time. I 
would not study, I am sure; what’s the use?” 
asked Joe. “ Well, for my part, I am bound 
to get this lesson the first thing 1 do,” said Sam. 
“ Pooh, it’s too hot to study; besides, I hate 
algebra; what’s the use of puzzling your brains 
over x plusy?” “I think it is of use to get 
our lessons,” said Sam. “ What are you going 
to do after that?” asked Joe. “ I am going to 
weed the onion beds.” “Oh, it’s too pleasant 
to work; what’s the use of tying yourself up 
here all the afternoon ?” I know I would not,” 
said Joe Dennet. “ Well, I think it’s of use to 
do what needs to be done,” was Sam’s answer. 
This was a fair sample of Sam Powers and 
Joseph Dennet, two boys who lived in the same 
neighborhood. It is twenty-five years or more 
since this kind of talk took place, and the boys 
are now men. Sam Powers is called a man of 
“ iron will,” because he lays plans and carries 
them out with a patience and energy which 
never gives up. He is one of the first business 
men in the State, and a truly pious man too. 
How is it with Joe ? He goes through life a 
man, just as he did a boy. If there is any ex¬ 
tra exertion to be made in his business, he asks, 
“What’s the use?” and goes to it with so little 
heart, that he is sure to fail. He is always com¬ 
plaining of hard times, and wondering how peo¬ 
ple get ahead so. As for his religion, he does 
not live as if it were of much use to him or 
any one else. 
There are some boys who, when they have 
any thing to do, or are called upon to do a little 
more than usual, try to shirk offby asking, “ Oh 
what’s the use?” The fact is, boys, there is 
use in doing like a man what you have to do. 
There is use in getting your lessons, and getting 
them well, and making extra exertions to get 
them, if they are difficult. There is use in 
weeding the garden, chopping at the wood-pile, 
finding the cows, cultivating a taste for reading, 
and in doing what your parents ask of you. 
Whenever I hear a boy trying to excuse him¬ 
self from duty by asking fretfully, “ Oh what’s 
he use ?” I mark him as a lazy, shirking, shuf¬ 
fling boy, who will be very likely to be good for 
nothing when he grows up. You must have a 
hearty interest in your work; and .always feel 
very suspicious of yourself, if you find an in¬ 
clination to dodge a duty with this meaningless 
excuse.— Child's Paper. 
iiailintltral gqrartmettl 
To Horticulturists. — Our weekly issue of 
so large a journal, gives us ample room to devote 
to the different departments of cultivation, and 
we have commenced with this volume, to allot a 
separate space to Horticulture. We have secured 
additional efficient aid in its conduction, and we 
invite horticulturists generally, to send in their 
contributions on all subjects interesting and in- 
s motive to those engaged in similar pursuits 
R ith themselves. We are receiving the leading 
foreign and domestic horticultural journals, and 
shall be abundantly able to bring promptly be¬ 
fore our readers all that transpires, which may 
be new and useful. 
■- 1 • »- 
For tlie American Agriculturist. 
BOTANICAL SCIENCE. 
Is science a mystery ? Does it, as some al¬ 
lege, mystify the commonplace objects daily 
met with in the world around us, setting them 
forth with strangest titles, foreign to our homely 
language? By no means! It arranges, me¬ 
thodically, the multitude of forms into which 
the beneficent Creator has for our gratification 
divided the mass, and ourselves he has gifted 
with a reasoning and intellectual nature to di¬ 
gest the scheme. In the last number of the 
Agriculturist you have presented a long list of 
such apparently harsh names; and from the 
fact that a lady had collected and arraigned the 
materials with which it corresponded, we might 
infer that after all, scientific botany is not the 
hard , dry study that we are accustomed to 
have it represented to us. Though for my own 
part I do not believe that much of the talk about 
female deficiency in intellect has any better 
foundation in fact than has this current opinion, 
that science mystifies. I, for one, hope to see 
our rural population become daily more truly 
scientific, so much so at least, that when a 
friend inadvertently ta'ks of Italian Ray Grass, 
as Lolium Perenne for Italicum, they may 
comprehend him, and that a Farmer's Club* 
may not display its want of sound knowledge 
by listening to a professor style it, Lolium Mul- 
tiflorum, without his citing some good author¬ 
ity for the change in nomenclature. 
I shall add a few remarks at a future time on 
this pleasant topic. S. 
Philadelphia , July 19. 
* Philadelphia County Club last monthly meeting, viz :, 
A. L. Kennedy. 
Where to get Tallow. —Besides the bear, 
the beaver, the martin, and other creatures, 
whose furs alone are sought for, there are vast 
hordes of horned cattle subsisting on the open 
grass lands and wooded dells of the great cen¬ 
tral plains lying between the base of the rocky 
mountains and the border of the forests that 
skirt Hudson’s Bay. These creatures have 
been seen not in hundreds, but in tens of thou¬ 
sands, wild and in fine condition. Their flesh 
has been tasted by travelers and reported to be 
excellent food. Tens of thousands of these 
wild herds perish yearly in Rupert’s Land; 
and, by the simplest commercial arrangements, 
they might be made to yield tallow’, hides, and 
horns for the benefit of this country.' —Dickens's 
Household Words. 
The Unreasonableness of Doubting the 
Existence of a Future State. —If those who 
have been led to deny or doubt the existence of 
a future state were only to reflect dispassion¬ 
ately on the circumstances under which they 
have come to that unhappy conclusion, they 
would find their opinions to be as much in an¬ 
tagonism to reason as they are at variance with 
revelation. They refuse to believe in a hereaf¬ 
ter because they have neither themselves had 
experience of another state of being, nor had 
the testimony to its existence of any person 
who has. A moment’s reflection wfill suffice to 
show how unphilosophical this mode of reason¬ 
ing is. Suppose the child in its mother’s womb 
w’ere capable of reasoning, it would be justified 
in arriving at the same conclusion with regard 
to our present state of being. It has had no 
experience of the world into which it is des¬ 
tined in a few weeks or days to be ushered; nor 
has it received the testimony of any one who 
can affirm from experience, that such a world 
exists. Yet we know that were the unborn 
child to arrive at the conviction that there is no 
other state than that with which it is conver¬ 
sant, it would reason erroneously, and come to 
a conclusion at variance with the fact. No less 
unphilosophical is it in the man who rejects the 
idea of a future state to do so because he has 
had no experience of its existence, nor had the 
fact vouched for by any one who has returned 
from the unseen world. There is one consider¬ 
ation which ought to annihilate the scepticism 
regarding a future state which so extensively 
prevails. That consideration is, that we are 
here through some invisible agency unknown 
to us, and altogether irrespective of our own 
will or action; and why should not the same 
invisible agency, whatever it may be, which in¬ 
troduced us into this world, and made us sue 
ceptible here of exquisite pleasure or of excru¬ 
ciating pain, usher us, when our earthly being 
has come to a close,into another state of exist¬ 
ence altogether unlike the present, where we 
shall be immeasurably more susceptible of 
pleasure or of pain, and where that pleasure or 
that pain shall be enduring as eternity itself? 
Habits of the Fox. —A neighbor of ours pos¬ 
sessed a large number of fine turkeys, which 
usually roosted on the branches of some tall 
Scotch firs, immediately adjoining the farm¬ 
yard. Reynard had an eye to these, and paid 
them several visits, during the moonlight nights, 
unsuccessfully; there were perched too high for 
him to reach them, and therefore he had to resort 
to stratagem, for stratagem is the fox’s stalking- 
horse. Now, how was this to be practised? 
Well, he first scratched the ground beneath the 
tree with his fore-feet, and then the base of the 
tree itself, in order to draw their attention, at 
the same time looking up, to maik every move¬ 
ment. He then ran round the tree in rapid 
rings. The turkeys, aware of their danger, 
followed his quick movements with their eyes 
and became confused and dizzy. One fine bird 
fell plump upon the ground, and was instantly 
killed, according to the authority of the shep¬ 
herd, who was watching the proceedings. The 
like scheme was repeated, and down came an¬ 
other, which shared the same fate. Both were 
borne off to the earths .—Sporting Magazine. 
It was a Portland lady that said she would 
make a poor sailor, and to which a nautical 
friend replied, “ But you would make an excel¬ 
lent mate though.” 
A large Legacy.—-' ! What will you leave 
me in your will?” said a lady to an Irishman, 
He very cooly answered, “ The wide world, ma¬ 
dam.” 
