250 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
and mechanics facilitate the work of hands. 
Let contrivance and skill take the place ol 
bone and muscle ; and nothing, we are con¬ 
fident, can give greater impulse to the cause 
of the farmer. This is the [reason why so 
many young men have hitherto fled to the 
city in pursuit of fortune ; because the toils 
of agriculture are so great, and the rewards 
so meager and remote, compared with many 
branches of trade, as to offer no incentive in 
this direction. It is vain to appeal to the 
ease and happiness of rural life, and caution 
against the dangers that beset the town. So 
long as those objections lie in the wav, these 
things will be little desired on the one hand, 
or feared on the other. Once show that ag¬ 
riculture is capable of as great and as speedy 
returns, and with as little labor, as other pur¬ 
suits, and we shall see as much talent and 
influence attracted to its ranks, as to any 
avocation or profession whatever. 
WATERMELON JUICE. 
A correspondent copies the following, 
which originally appeared in the Prairie 
Farmer, and sends it with his own endorse¬ 
ment. Keep this till the melon season. 
I endeavor to raise a good watermelon 
patch. They are a healthy and delightful 
fruit. I cultivate the Icing variety ; plant 
early in May, and again towards the close of 
the month, so that they may come in suc¬ 
cession. When they begin ripening we com¬ 
mence cutting and'using themTreely during 
the hot weather. When the weather be¬ 
comes cool in September, we bring a quan¬ 
tity of them to the house, split them open, 
with a spoon scrape out the pulp into a cul¬ 
lender, and strain the juice into vessels. 
We boil it in an iron vessel to a syrup, 
then put in apples or peaches like making 
apple-butter, and boil slowly until the fruit 
is well cooked ; then spice to the taste, and 
we have something that most people prefer 
to apple-butter or any kind of preserves. 
Or the syrup may be boiled without fruit 
down to molasses, which wili be as fine as 
the sugar-house molasses. We have made 
in a single autumn as much as ten gallons 
of the apple-butter (if I may so call it) and 
molasses, which kept in a fine condition un¬ 
til May. 
Tomato Preserves. —Take the round yel¬ 
low variety as soon as ripe, scald and peel ; 
then to seven pounds of tomatoes add seven 
pounds of white sugar, and let them stand 
over night. Take the tomatoes out of the 
sugar and boil the syrup, removing the scum. 
Put in the tomatoes and boil gently fifteen 
or twenty minutes, remove the fruit again 
and boil until the syrnp thickens. On cool¬ 
ing put the fruit into jars and pour the syrup 
over it, and add a few slices of lemon to 
each jar, and you will have something to 
please the taste of the most fastidious. 
An Anecdote erom the Seat of War.— 
The Buffalo Commercial copies the following 
letter from an officer in the Crimea, to a 
citizen in Buffalo : 
A curious thing occurred yesterday. A 
sapper was brought from the trenches with 
his jaw broken, and the Doctor told me there 
was a piece of it sticking out an inch and a 
half from his face. The man said it was 
done by a round shot, which the Doctor dis¬ 
believed, but the poor fellow insisted and 
said : “ Yes, and it took off the head of the 
man next me.” This was conclusive, and 
the Surgeon proceeded to remove the bone ; 
it came out quite easy, when the Doctor said 
to the man, whose face appeared to preserve 
its form pretty well, “ Can you move your 
jaw ?” “ Oh, yes, sir,” was the reply. The 
Doctor then put his finger into the man’s 
mouth, and found the teeth were there, and 
at length assured the soldier that it was no 
jaw of his that was broken, but that of his 
headless comrade, which had actually been 
driven into his face, inflicting a severe but 
not dangerous wound. Upon this the man’s 
visage, which had been rather lengthened, 
rounded up most beautifully. 
“A little humor now and then, 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
THE THISTLE-BLOSSOM. 
BY E. S. SMITH. 
In a beautiful meadow, daintily spread 
With clover-blossoms, white and red, 
And sweet wild flowers of varied hue, 
An ugly thistle flourished, too— 
Loftily there, 
In the soft summer air, 
Up rose its rude form o’er the fragrant and fair. 
Many a golden butterfly 
Came, like a sunbeam, hovering nigh, 
And one, the brightest of all his race, 
Folded his wings in that perilous place. 
Why did he go, 
This gayly-dressed beau, 
To a flower that was armed like a deadly foe 1 
A little ground-sparrow, flitting near, 
Sang aloud in the butterfly’s ear, 
And kindly w’arned him to hasten away— 
AVeaving these words in his tuneful lay — 
“ Foolieh one, flee ! 
Or soon you will be 
Pierced thro’ by those countless thorns you see !” 
Beau-Butterfly never heeded the song— 
For so fickle a wooer his courtship was long; 
And the very moment he took his flight, 
A honey-bee came, with a hum of delight, 
And, hiding his head 
In that thorn-guarded bed, 
Forgot the rich clover all round him spread. 
The sparrow sang in a louder strain 
His friendly song of warning again; 
But, though its notes were breathed so near, 
The bee was too busy to heed or to hear— 
With thirsting lip 
He continued to sip, 
'Till heavy with wealth was his golden hip. 
Ah, the butterfly knew, and so did the bee, 
Not all sweet flowers are fairest to see; 
And though the thistle was homely and rough, 
Yet the heart of its blossoms had honey enough— 
Honey to spare— 
Some for the air, 
And plenty for fly and for bee to share. 
How oft is it thus, in the bowers of earth, 
With human blossoms of lowly birth ; 
Their garb may be rude, and their forms uncouth, 
Yet their spirits enshrine the sweetness of truth— 
When such you spy, 
Oh, pass them not by 
With haughty step and averted eye, 
But pause to speak in a kindly strain— 
A recompense sweet you will surely gain. 
Home Journal. 
How Shall I Preserve the Heart I have 
Won? —Endeavor to make your husband's 
habitation alluring and delightful to him. 
Make it a repose from his cares, a shelter 
from the world, a home for his heart. In¬ 
variably adorn yourself with delicacy and 
modesty. Let your husband suppose you 
think him a good husband, and it will be a 
strong stimulus to his being so. Cultivate 
cheerfulness and good humor. Conceal his 
faults, and speak only of his virtues. Shun 
extravagance. Let your home be your em¬ 
pire, your Avorld. In its sober, quiet scenes 
let your heart cast its anchor, let your feel¬ 
ings and pursuits be centered. 
Dr. Franklin on Spelling. —You need not 
be concerned in writing to me about your 
bad spelling; it is generally the best, as con¬ 
forming to the sounds of the letters. To 
give you an instance, a gentleman received 
a letter, in which were these words : Not 
finding Brown at hom I delivered your mes- 
sag to his yf. The gentleman called his 
Avife to help him read it. BetAveen them they 
picked out all but yf, which they could not 
understand. The wife proposed calling her 
chambermaid, “because Betty,” says she, 
“ has the best knack of reading bad spelling, 
of anybody I know.” Betty came and [Avas 
surprised that neither of them could tell 
what yf was. “ Why,” says she, “ yf spells 
wife—Avhat else can it spell?” and indeed, 
it is a much better as well as a shorter 
method than doubleyou-i-f-e, which in reality 
spells double-wifey. — Franklin's Letters. 
Russian Bullets. —A soldier who had re¬ 
ceived three musket Avounds at the battle of 
Inkerman, one in his leg and two in his 
shoulder, was taken to Scutari, where the 
bullets were extracted. He soon recovered, 
and one day gave the bullets, as a keepsake, 
to an invalid chum Avho was coming home. 
The disabled soldier who received 
the disfigured pieces of Russian lead 
having said, “I think you should keep the 
bullets yourself,” received the following 
ansAver, which in its OAvn way has, we think, 
never been paralleled—“ Oh, they are of no 
use to me, I am going back to the Crimea, 
where I Avill soon get plenty more of them.” 
—Glasgow Herald. 
Indian Ppeacher. —“John, what do you do 
for a living ?” 
“ 0 ! me preach.” 
“ Preach ! and do you get paid for it ?” 
“ Sometimes me get a shilling ; sometimes 
two shillings.” 
“ And isn’t that mighty poor pay ?” 
“ Oh ! yes—but it’s mighty poor preach.” 
D’Aubigne, in his history of the Reforma¬ 
tion, says, “ The Gospel triumphs by the 
blood of its confessors, not by its adversa¬ 
ries.” 
Those who excel in strength are not the 
most likely to shoAv contempt of weakness. 
A man does not despise the weakness of a 
child. 
Robert Hall said of family prayer, “ It 
serves as an edge border, to preserve the 
web of life from unraveling. 
God requires the service of the whole be¬ 
ing. Strive therefore for a pure heart, a 
clear mind, and a sound body. 
The men Avho jump at conclusions seldom 
reach any that are worth having. These 
must be got by climbing. 
The ardent reformer moves the multitude, 
but the calm philosopher moves the ardent 
reformer. 
The Avorld seems to the old to have gone 
backward, because they have gone forward. 
It is hard work to teach people who can 
learn nothing Avithout being taught. 
A man is slow to perceive his own slow¬ 
ness of perception, 
