342 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
and baking-days, if the roof is dry and the wind 
brisk, are fine times to get up a conflagration. 
Shingles burn well at such a time. Still, if one 
does not want such costly sport, let him take a 
calm, moist day, and burn out his flues. Put a 
faggot of straw in the fire-place and set it a-fire. 
Or, if you have only a stove-pipe hole, stuff in 
a large roll of newspapers, and touch them off. 
If the draft becomes too strong, partly close the 
hole below. Attend to this burning once a year, 
and you need have little apprehension from fires 
in your chimney. 
Righting a Leaning Chimney.—A leaning 
chimney can be made perpendicular by simply 
sawing out portions of the mortar upon the side 
from which it leans; the flaws being kept wet, 
to make a soft bed for the chimney to settle in. 
This method was recently tried with success at 
Port Dundas, Scotland, upon a chimney which 
was 408 feet in liight, and 50 feet in diameter at 
the base. Twelve cuts were successively made 
at different bights. 
A Cheap Coal Sifter. 
Enough coal to supply hundreds of families is 
every year wasted by carelessly throwing away 
the cinders unsifted. In large cities, many of 
the poor get their whole supply of fuel, by rak¬ 
ing over the heaps 'where servants or others 
have thrown out the half burned clearings of the 
grate, or stove. The sifter described in a former 
number of the Agriculturist is very convenient, 
arid will soon pay for itself in the amount of 
coal saved, besides rendering the ashes more fit 
for purposes of manure. For those who can 
not well obtain such an apparatus, the follow¬ 
ing which will answer every purpose, will be 
valuable. 
Take an old sugar barrel with a handled cov¬ 
er, cut two holes in the top of the chimes on 
opposite sides, two inches deep and two inches 
wide. Buy a common sieve for a shilling, strap 
it to an old shovel, and place it in the barrel, 
the handle in the holes or rests above mention¬ 
ed. Put your coal into the sieve, put on your 
cover, take hold of the old shovel handle and 
shake, with as much side motion as you please. 
Take off the cover, lift the sieve by the handle 
and turn the coal, at arms length, into your hod. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Untidy Housekeeping'—Women not al¬ 
ways at Fault. 
[Private Note.— What follows is not for housekeepers 
to read themselves, but for them to mark, and place where 
their poorer halves will be pretty sure to see it.— Ed.] 
It’s all very well, Mr. Editor, to be lectured 
about our housekeeping, to be told of the com¬ 
fort, the felicity, and all that sort of thing, which 
tt tidy, well kept house will afford, but for one, 
I’m getting a little impatient that writers gen¬ 
erally take it for granted that the ladies alone 
are responsible in this matter; that if dust col¬ 
lects on the furniture, if litter is strewn on the 
carpet, if the table linen is not snowy white and 
the cooking stove jet-black—in short, if every 
thing is not in the very best “ apple-pie” order, 
it is because the mistress of the house is a slat¬ 
tern. That may be the case I admit, but again, 
it may not be. Here is an illustration : My 
friend Mrs. F - lives in a two story house on 
the mairt village street, where there is almost 
constant travel over the unpaved road. Much 
of the time, clouds of dust fill the air, and come 
sifting through every crevice, settling down 
upon the carpets and furniture, and reducing 
every thing to a most undelightful uniformity of 
color. The good woman sweeps and dusts, to 
little purpose—to keep clean, she would have to 
dust the air itself. Now, when that house was 
built, she tried her best to have Air. F., lay the 
foundation further back from the street; there 
was room enough, but no, he must be on a line 
with his neighbors. One would think he might 
now fill the small yard with trees to exclude 
part of the dust, or cover the road With gravel, 
or occasionally spread tan bark over it, to keep 
it from rising; but instead of that, he wonders 
that Mrs. F., does not keep the parlor neater. 
When it rains, the dust settles into mud, and 
Mr. F. loolcs bad words at the tracks on the 
kitchen floor, but he has never laid even a plank 
walk from the street to the door, and the edge 
of the sill is the only foot scraper. Mrs. F. long- 
ago asked for a closet with hooks for hats and 
clothing, and shelves for the children’s books, 
but to this day, these articles are distributed 
about upon the mantel piece, and on nails driven 
into the wall—that is, when she places them 
there, for the boys imitate their father, and lay 
their things on the first vacant chair, or in an 
unoccupied corner. His lordship uses the stove 
for a spittoon, and the tablecloth for a napkin, 
he smokes in the sitting room, and mends his 
harness in the kitchen, and thanks Mrs. F. for 
her constant endeavors to be tidy under such 
difficulties, by wishing she would keep a neater 
house. If any one wants further evidence that 
the meii need a share of the lecturing, let them 
visit the house where the wife lias been absent 
a few days, and my word for it, they will be 
ready to make some allowances for the appa¬ 
rent short comings of .the Housekeeper. 
- - ' rB -OgP*"-- 
A Word for the Babies. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Is it not a little singular that while the kitch¬ 
en, the parlor, the bed-rooms, and even the gar¬ 
ret and cellar, receive their due share of atten¬ 
tion in the Agriculturist, few of your correspon¬ 
dents have a word to say about the little ones ? 
Nice furniture, good cooking, proper table man¬ 
ners, etc., are all important in good housekeep¬ 
ing, but what mother would not- rather hear 
about her baby, than any other subject that can 
be introduced. Listen to the conversation 
when ladies meet of an afternoon. What “dear 
little creatures ” they are, to be sure, how cun¬ 
ning, how forward, or—how troublesome. Then 
too, observe how when a visitor wishes to ingra¬ 
tiate himself witli the head of the family, he ad¬ 
dresses himself at once to the baby; if he can 
win a smile there, he need not fear an unfavor¬ 
able reception from the mother. 
It makes me smile to read the plans laid down 
in some books for doing the household work. 
There is an hour set for rising, so long a time 
for getting breakfast and clearing up, so much 
for sweeping and dusting, etc., and so on to the 
end of the chapter, making every thing go by 
the clock, and like clock-work — on paper. Who 
doesn’t know, that forty times a day, whether 
washing, ironing or baking, when baby cries, 
every thing must be dropped at once, and its 
mouth be stopped in some way ? — some mothers 
know only one way, but of that hereafter. Why 
you might as well lay down the number of 
hours each day that a sailor shall have his sails 
up and arranged in a particular manner, and ex¬ 
pect him to get safely to port. The first squall 
knocks all such calculations overboard. 
Now, since these costly little treasures neces¬ 
sarily take up so much time and attention, and 
in view of the inexperience and ignorance of 
thousands of young married people, it appears 
to me, that if some capable mother would teach 
us how to take care of the baby, she would add inter¬ 
est to your columns, and be a real benefactress. 
I’m sure the household nursery is worthy of as 
much attention as the tree nursery, to which 
you devote a column monthly, and if you agree 
with me, we may hope that this subject may 
hereafter receive due attention. Martha. 
Remarks. —A most excellent suggestion; cer¬ 
tainly, let the babies receive then - share of at¬ 
tention. Who will tell our readers, how to 
keep them comfortable and healthy, how and 
when to feed them, how to amuse them, to give 
them proper exercise, describe their proper 
clothing, and a hundred other matters that a 
man would never think of? We will cheerfully 
make room for good practical suggestions, how¬ 
ever faulty may be the style—that can easily be 
remedied in the editorial mill, where most con¬ 
tributions are ground over. —Ed. 
-«©—4-—<ad^EB»»--*—<S»-- 
Errors in Dress. 
It need not cost much money to dress well, 
and on the other hand a person may be expen¬ 
sively and yet not -well dressed. Foreigners say 
that American ladies spend more for clothing » 
and ornaments, than those of any other nation, 
but they do not express the opinion that the la¬ 
dies of this country are more attractively array¬ 
ed than those of Europe. Some one has made 
a whimsical calculation after the following man¬ 
ner. “ There” says lie, “ goes a lady with fifty 
bushels of corn upon her back,”—her silk ch-css 
equaled the market value of the corn, another 
had a bale of cotton in her bosom, represented 
by adiamon pin, a third carried two tuns of hay 
upon her head in the shape of a bonnet, and 
another was encumbered with a quarter section 
of land in the form of a brocade skirt. Yet not 
one of these persons was well dressed. The 
observer looked upon them as he would into 
the window of a dry-goods store, or a jeweler’s 
shop; he saw a splendid display, but it attract¬ 
ed attention from the wearer, to what she 
carried. The object to be gained by trtste in 
dress is to adorn, to attract attention to the 
wearer, and to higliten the pleasure of looking 
upon her. Now if the bonnet, the shawl, the 
jewelry, or the dress is the center point of at¬ 
traction, they detract from, father than add to 
the wearer’s, charms. A good writer on this 
subject has said : a lady is well dressed, when 
you can not remember a Single article of her 
clothing—meaning that no one thing should be 
so conspicuous as to attract attention, but that 
all be suited to the peculiar bodily habit of the 
wearer. Now, whatever fashion may dictate, 
it can not make the same style suit a tall and a 
short person. The present amplitude of crino¬ 
line gives a rather queenly air to a tall dignified 
lady, but upon a short, and especially upon a 
corpulent person, its effect is ludicrous. When 
narrow striped stuffs are Worn, they make a 
person appear taller, arid a very tall lady should 
shun them unless she wishes to higliten lief ap¬ 
parent stature; let her rather adopt wide stripes 
or large figures, or patterns which have a con¬ 
trary effect. So too in the inatter of colors. At 
one time pink is the prevailing style, and it sv.its 
a dark complexion quite well, but it gives ;t 
frightful greenish hue to one of vervj fair or pale 
cheeks; such should choose green or blue tints 
if they would appear -well in preference to being 
