236 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Drops made the ocean. If we would do 
much good in the world, we must be willing 
to do good in little things, setting a good 
example all the time. 
TAKE CARE OF YOUR THOUGHTS. 
Sin begins in the heart. If you can keep 
your thoughts pure, your life will be blame¬ 
less. The indulgence of sinful thoughts and 
desires produces sinful actions. When lust 
hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. The 
The pleasurable contemplation of a sinful 
deed is usually followed by its commission. 
Never allow yourself to pause and consider 
the pleasure or profit you might derive from 
this or that sin. Close your mind against 
the suggestion at once, as you would lock 
and bolt your door against a robber. If Eve 
had not stood parleying with the devil, and 
admiring the beautiful fruit, the earth might 
have yet been a paradise. No one becomes 
a thief, a fornicator, or a murderer, at once. 
The mind must be first corrupted. The 
wicked suggestion must be indulged and re¬ 
volved in the thoughts, until it loses its hide¬ 
ous deformity, and the anticipated gain or 
pleasure comes to outweigh the evils of the 
transgression. 
Your imagination is apt to paint forbidden 
pleasure in gay and dazzling colors. It is 
the serpent’s charm. Gaze not upon the 
picture. Suffer not the intruder to get a 
lodgment. Meet the enemy at the thresh- 
hold, and drive it from your heart. As a 
rule, the more familiar you become with sin 
the less hateful it appears ; so that the more 
completely you preserve your mind from 
unholy and wicked thoughts, the better. 
Avoid the society where obscenity**or blas¬ 
phemy is heard. Cultivate the society of the 
virtuous. Read nothing that is unchaste or 
immoral. Make a covenant with your eyes. 
Familiarize not your mind with the loath¬ 
some details of crime. Never harbor ma¬ 
licious and envious thoughts. Direct your 
thoughts towards pure and holy subjects. 
Contemplate the character of the spotless 
and perfect Son of God. Keep your spirit 
untainted, your thoughts uncontaminated, 
so shall your life be virtuous. As a man 
thinketh, so is he. Take care of the thoughts 
and the actions will take care of themselves. 
Presbyterian. 
Lessons from Little Things. —How few 
persons can make a pin, and yet how , many 
pins are lost every day, and nobody cares 
whether they are lost or not! A rich, penu¬ 
rious man will stoop to pick up a pin, but will 
he give a copper to his ragged fellow-being 1 
A seed is a little thing and may be buried 
three thousand years and thereafter spring 
into life and feed a poor man. This is mys¬ 
tery, but it is a truism, well proved. Little 
things are greater than mountains. The 
child’s rattle is a plaything for the child, and 
yet the child may at some future day com¬ 
mand a whole nation ! A little thing often 
leads to great results. A little shell on the 
ocean’s shore—a little flower in the meadow 
—a bubble from the fountain—a dewdrop on 
the grass—a fly in the spider’s web—a bee 
making honey—are all little things, and im¬ 
mortality has been gained by men who 
watched them and did not overlook the les¬ 
sons of little things. The diamond is a very 
small gem, but it commands a very high sum 
among men. It is a little thing and is worth¬ 
less as food, but as a diamond it will procure 
bread at all times. 
Let us not, therefore, disregard or dispise 
the lessons of little things, for they show the 
road we must all travel from the cradle to 
the grave !—Fireside Journal. 
It is a thousand times easier to contract a 
good habit, than to get rid of an old one. 
Feeling on the Battle Field. —The Cri¬ 
mea correspondent of the New-York Sun, 
writing from Balaklava, gives, from the ex¬ 
perience of a wounded Frenchman, an opin¬ 
ion with regard to that which is felt by the 
soldier in time of conflict, which is some¬ 
thing as follows: 
“ Before the battle begins, it is usual to 
feel no little tremor, and many cheeks which 
are known to be in communication with stout 
hearts, blanch visibly. As the conflict be¬ 
comes imminent, courage returns, and with 
the first flow of blood an enthusiasm is raised 
which constantly increases and very seldom 
flags in the least until the last shot is fired. 
The effect of seeing a comrade shot down is 
generally to excite an inappeasable thirst for 
vengeance against the foe, though in the end 
one “gets used to it.” When wounded less 
than mortally, it is not usual for a soldier to 
be immediately aware of it, unless some 
bones are broken. A sabre may be run 
through any fleshy part of the body, and 
even a bullet may lodge in dangerous prox¬ 
imity to the vitals, and he for a long time, 
be totally unconscious of even a scratch. 
When life is taken by a single blow, the ef¬ 
fect varies with the nature of the wound, as 
well as with the temperament of the man. 
Sometimes the poor fellow will leap high 
into the air and again will lie down quietly. 
Oftener, however, he simply falls dead with¬ 
out a struggle. In most cases the features 
of the killed remain unchanged for a long 
time after death—eyes open and brilliant, 
and, perchance, a smile illuminating the face. 
To see such an one it is difficult indeed to 
realize the presence of the grim monster, 
Death.” 
Dining at Sea in a Gale. —There is but a 
step from the sublime to the ridiculous, from 
the deck to the saloon. It is rather too much 
trouble for a lazy man to eat on shipboard in 
rough weather. It would require a man to 
have the hundred hands of Briareus, and the 
hundred eyes of Argus, and keep them all 
in occupation, too, to dine in safety, to say 
nothing of comfort—for that, under the cir¬ 
cumstances, is wholly out of the question. 
You have to hold on to your plate to keep it 
near you ; to hold on to your glass of water 
to avoid the unnecessary luxury of an ex¬ 
tempore shower bath ; to hold on to your¬ 
self to keep yourself at the table ; to hold 
on to the table to keep yourself off the top 
of it, and away from your neighbors. Be¬ 
sides this, to dodge or hide yourself, as the 
case may be, from the flying dishes that oc¬ 
casionally make little excursions on their 
own resposibility. A man that can get his 
victuals on board a ship in a storm can get 
his living anywhere ; he need have no fear 
of the future, so far as eating is concerned. 
Mrs. 'Partington on the War. —“ Is there 
any news from the Chimera?” said Mrs. 
Partington, dropping in upon us suddenly, 
like a bombshell, on the arrival of the 
last steamer. She had Ike with her, 
who immediately seized upon a pair af scis¬ 
sors and began puncturing the top of the 
desk against, which he was standing, at the 
same time kicking the table at which we 
were sitting. “ Is there any news from the 
Chimera?” We told her that the news of 
the Emperor’s death was confirmed. “Ah 1” 
said she with a sigh, “ war is indeed dread¬ 
ful when it won’t allow people to make their 
peace when they die. I declare it gives me 
a nashua at my stomach when I think that 
men should forget the kindnesses and mean¬ 
nesses of life (she meant amenities) to wor¬ 
ry each other by military engineers that does 
it—if they would have civil engineers there 
now, in a little time the black sea of war 
would become a Pacific ocean. 
Fight Between a Frog and Swallow. —A 
curious and furious fight between a swallow 
and a frog was witnessed at New-Bostonthe 
other day. The swallow had approached the 
margin of a pond for material for its nest, 
when it was seized by a huge frog and 
drawn into the water. It was evidently the 
design of the frog to drown the bird and 
then make a meal of it, while the swallow 
acted on the defensive alone. The fight 
went on with varying success, till a member 
of the peace society interfered and parted 
the combatants .—Meriden Transcript. 
Quoth Patrick of the Yankee : “Bedad, if 
he was cast away on a desolate island he’d 
get up the next morning and go round selling 
maps to the inhabitants.” 
Btarkts. 
Remarks. —Flour took the downward scale 
a few weeks since and still continues upon 
it. The decline in prices during the past 
week has been from 25c. to 75c. per bbl., 
except upon a few extra brands, of which 
there has been a temporary scarcity. Gen¬ 
esee Extra is quoted at a trifling advance. 
The greateat fall has been upon the lower 
grades, there being a large supply of these. 
During the past three weeks, the lower and 
common brands of flour have declined more 
than $1 per bbl., Corn of common grades 
10c. to 15c., and oats 30c. to 40c. per bushel. 
Corn during the past week has fluctuated 
somewhat, some kinds being lower and some 
kinds being higher than at our last report. 
Oats have experienced another heavy fall, 
and now range but a little above 50c.a53c. 
per bushel, though there have been some re¬ 
cent sale? of Western Oats at 54c.a60c. 
The Wheat prospect still continues good. 
The harvest is gradually advancing from 
South to North, and we hear of nothing but 
good reports wherever the crop has been 
gathered. It is now a time of much anxiety 
to wheat-growers in the Middle and Northern 
States. A few days of continued propitious 
weather, and this important crop is safe, 
while a single week unfavorable may blast 
the hopes of both producer and consumer. 
Cotton has experienced a uniform decline 
in all grades of ic. per lb. This will proba¬ 
bly be recovered under the influence of news 
just in from Liverpool of another small ad¬ 
vance there, notwithstanding the immense 
sales noticed in our last two reports. 
The weather continues very fine. In this 
region we have a full supply of rain, with 
hardly enough warm weather to produce the 
most rapid growth. This, however, is favor¬ 
able to grass, and indeed to all other crops 
at this particular juncture. 
The present arrival from Europe brings 
news of the final abandonment of the Vienna 
Conferences, and a determination to settle the 
existing difficulties only by the sword. With 
this prospect, there is no doubt but that there 
will be a heavy demand upon this country 
for breadstuff's for some time to come, so 
that however large the yield at the coming 
harvest, moderately high prices will prevail. 
PRODUCE MARKET. 
Tuesday, June 19, 1855. 
The prices given m our reports from week to week, are the 
average wholesale prices obtained by producers, and not those 
