66 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[ February, 
It ia more than mere fancy. It is a choice in which 
the heart and intellect are agreed. 
With this definition of love in mind, I should 
say, instead of giving a catalogue of the peculiar 
virtues a farmer’s wife should possess, marry the 
woman you love, if, after an intimate acquaintance, 
you both believe, on reasonable grounds, that you 
can be happy together. Learn each other’s tastes, 
habits, plans and hopes, and seriously consider 
how you are going to “ keep the pot boiling.” All 
the better for you both if the one you marry has a 
practical knowledge of household affairs before her 
marriage ; but if she is agood and sensible woman, 
and if you are a good and sensible man, you may 
be able to get alo<ng very happily, though she has 
all her experience of housekeeping to get after 
marriage. I would not advise any young couple 
to try this, but far worse mistakes are possible. 
It is a hazardous thing to rest your hopes of a 
happy married life upon the quality of butter and 
bread a woman can make. Some perfect house¬ 
keeper may make you the most wretched of men. 
And it is a silly thing to be scared out of matri¬ 
mony by any young woman’s wardrobe. Let her 
know—the good and sensible girl whom you love 
—just what your circumstances are, and she will 
conform to them without a murmurthat is, if 
she loves you as I suppose. You will be aston¬ 
ished to see how long she can make her nice dress¬ 
es last without looking old-fashioned or shabby. 
If you love and marry a woman who is essentially 
silly and selfish, you will have to take the evil 
fruits of such a character, and this is why I say 
make character the test—not accomplishments of 
any kind, nor external circumstances—though all 
these things should be duly considered. 
It is possible that your manhood—which is of 
rather more importance than your farm—may find 
its best complement in the womanhood of one who 
has a decided talent, that calls her away from the 
business of a housekeeper. Shall she bury her 
talent for your sake ? Have you such a genius for 
the business you have chosen as 'she has for her 
art, whatever it may be? Perhaps you can ar¬ 
range mutters so that each may follow a chosen vo¬ 
cation without interfering with the other. Most 
people, in giving advice to a young farmer, would 
say—seek a wife who is healthy, energetic, thor¬ 
ough, practical, and amiable. On the whole, after 
all these remarks, I dare not give advice—not even 
the advice of Punch to those about to marry: 
“ Don’t!” For how do I know what experience is 
best for any soul ? Faith Rochester. 
Home Doctoring. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Giving Medicines. —Nobody need expect a list 
of prescriptions for various diseases under this 
head. It is distressing to read most of the rec¬ 
ipes for medicines which circulate in the news¬ 
papers. Here, for instance, is one which some lady 
says she has found “invaluable in children’s bowel 
diseases,” and she publishes it in the Tribune. 
Have children only one kind of bowel disease? 
Does she pursue the same course to check diarrhoea 
as to overcome constipation ? The medicine is 
compounded of three ingredients, none of them 
harmless to a person in health, though none of 
them are classed among actual poisons. Is it not 
a dreadful thing for mothers to give their children 
drugs without having some idea of their nature 
and eff cts upon the system ? I asked a woman, 
the other day, what she was doing for her sick child. 
“ Oh, 1 give him some kind of doctor-stuff,” said 
she, complacently. 
Of course we cannot reasonably expect to learn 
all about the properties of the various medicines 
used by physicians; but I surely would give none 
that I did not understand, except under the direction 
of a good physician , in whom I had great confidence ; 
and I would never use medicines at all except as a 
last resort. Many persons say at once, when a per¬ 
son is ailing—“You had better take something;" 
that is their only idea of cure. When these drugs 
do not go to the right spot and effect a cure, who 
knows what mischief they may do? Many of 
them are active poisons, and very few prove harm¬ 
less if taken by persons in health. The disease 
you treat may seem to be arrested, only to give 
place to something quite as bad, or worse. There 
is about equal danger from 
Improper Water Treatment. —A mode of 
treatment for diarrhoea in children, which I just 
read in a Western paper, is about as horrible as 
any kind of drugging; and I can hardly credit the 
assertion of the paper, that sixteen children out of 
twenty, as treated by a certain doctor, recovered ! 
The method is this : “The child is enveloped in a 
common bed-sheet, which is first dipped in com¬ 
mon well water, and -then wrung thoroughly ; the 
patient is next covered with a woollen blanket, and 
allowed to remain thus for one hour; after this, 
cold compresses are applied to the abdomen. This 
is repeated every three or four hours—in severe 
cases, every hour.” And the patient is a little 
child—so easily shocked or terrified by any harsh 
treatment! 
I presume this performance is intended for a 
“pack,” a mode of treatment, when properly car¬ 
ried out, that often proves very efficacious in dif¬ 
ferent diseases. But a pack may be made one of 
the most barbarous operations in the world, if im¬ 
properly administered. “ Common well water !” 
Hard or soft ? Icy cold or tepid? Soft water is 
best is all applications to the body, and should be 
preferred when it can be obtained. It is absolutely 
necessary that a patient in a pack should have the 
feet warm —by artificial means, if necessary; and 
lie should always get thoroughly warm while in 
the pack. A single blanket would never be suffi¬ 
cient covering over the wet sheet; and a pack of 
an hour’s duration would be too long in all but ex¬ 
treme cates. 
Some people seem to imagine that water is such 
a simple thing, it can neither cure nor kill; but it 
is quite capable of doing either, as it is wisely or 
unwisely administered. It is a blessad, cleansing, 
healing agency. We have little, downright sickness 
to deal with in our family, though none of us in¬ 
herit very good constitutions. AVhen sickness 
seems to threaten, we pay stricter attention to 
the rules which, moderately observed, keep us in 
moderate health, and this greater carefulness usu¬ 
ally “cures” us. Perhaps some parent would like 
to know these 
Rui.es of Goon Sense. —Keep the feet warm 
and the head cool. Breathe pure air. Keep the skin 
clean. Take rest and exercise in such proportion 
as the body seems to require. Go to bed early, 
and ventilate your sleeping-room. Keep the bowels 
open by means of suitable diet and exercise, if pos¬ 
sible; if not, by injections of pure water. Eat 
plain, nutritious food at regular hours, under cheer¬ 
ful circumstances, and without haste. A little fast¬ 
ing is often the best remedy for a slight cold, a 
slight fever, neuralgia of the face, and all those 
diseases that arise from a disordered stomach. 
Some persons follow a fist with such a gorging as 
to destroy all its good effects. Cool compresses, 
made of a folded towel, wet in cool water, and cov¬ 
ered by another doubled towel, applied fo the 
head, throat, chest, bowels, spine, or whatever 
part suffers pain, often afford speedy and perma¬ 
nent relief, and may be used 1101110111 danger, pro¬ 
vided the system is not shocked by too cold water. 
Ignorant people speak of the “ cold water cure;” 
but the best practitioners seldom use absolutely 
cold water. For severe, sharp pains, cloths kept 
wet in as hot water as the patient can bear give 
most speedy relief. In almost any case of acute 
disease I should, if possible, summon a 
Good Doctor. —I should not care so much at 
what school he graduated as that he be a conscien¬ 
tious man, of good sense, and have a good knowl¬ 
edge of his profession. The more experience he 
had had the better; and the less he might seem 
to rely upon medicine, and the more he would 
trust to good nursing, the mors confidence I should [ 
have in him. 1 should be very anxious to have 
him tell me just what was the matter if I did not I 
already know ; not simply the name of the disease, 
but what part of the system he supposed to be out 
t • -——- ——- - 
of order; and then I could never be satisfied until 
1 found out the probable cause. I do not see how 
we can get along without educated physicians, so 
long as human nature is so untrue to the law's of 
its well-being, and so brings upon itself such nu¬ 
merous and complicated diseases. 
ffitfDYS 4 (TO3W ©©WMMSo 
A Visit to YSoamt Vesuvius. 
BY “ CARLETON.” 
A volcano ! Is there a boy or girl who would not like 
to see a volcano ? Whe is there that would not go a 
long jouruey to see Vesuvius—that wonderful vent-hole 
in the crust of the earth ? When I was younger than I 
am now I read about Mount Vesuvius—how the moun¬ 
tain was on fire, and was always smoking like a coal-pit, 
or boiling over like a dinner-pot—how at times rivers of 
fire rolled down its sides, destroying fields and woods, 
houses and vineyards, citjes and towns, and carrying 
desolation from the crater to the sea. The geography 
that I studied at school had a picture of the great traveler, 
explorer, and man of science—Alexander Humbolt— sit¬ 
ting on a shelving rock, and looking down into a lake of 
fire and brimstone that rolled and surged, and bubbled 
hundreds of feet below Mm. 1 often wished that I could 
see a volcano, and the time came at length when the 
desire of my boyhood was.gratified. 
It was a bright winter morning in February when we 
started out from a hotel in the city of Naples to ascend 
Vesuvius. We could see the mountain a dozen miles 
away to the east, with a thin gray column of smoke ris¬ 
ing from its summit. The street along which we rode 
runs by the shore of the sea, whose waves were nppiing 
on the beach and gently rocking hundreds of boats 
that come up from Sorrento and Amalfi and other towns 
along the coast, loaded to Hie water’s edge with oranges. 
I think that I never had seen so many oranges before in 
all my life. There were thousands of bushels. They 
lay in great piles on the shore; there were baskets, 
boats, carts, and wagons heaped with them. And so 
cheap! I bought ten for a cent! How delicious they 
were! We obtain no good oranges in this country, for 
to get them to our market they must be picked before 
they are ripe. The people of Napltys and Messina would 
think that the oranges in our market were only fit for pigs 
to eat. There were hundreds of carts in the streets, and 
thousands of donkeys carrying panniers filled with the 
fruit. I think that 1 never before or since saw so many 
donkeys together as there were along the quay. The 
country people were in with vegetables for the market, 
consisting mainly of garlics, onions, cabbages, carrots, 
and cauliflowers. Not unfrequently the donkeys would 
be so covered up with cabbages and carrots, that I could 
only see their noses and the flapping of their ears. 
The Italians arc very cruel toward the brute creation. 
They overload their horses and donkeys, and whip them 
unmercifully. I have seen chicken pedlers break the 
wings and legs of the fowls they were taking to market, 
so that the poor things could not fly nor run away. I 
wanted to give the brutal fellows a crack over the head. 
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
will find Naples, missionary ground. I did not see a well- 
fed work-horse In the city. The people keep tlicir horses 
and donkeys at Hie point of starvation. They do not 
give them much hay, and little, if any, grain ; but feed 
them almost wholly on carrots. 
As we ride along the street, our hack-driver stops a 
huckster and buys four cents’ worth of carrots for his 
horse’s dinner. Think of baiting a span of horses at 
that rate ! The carrots were about six inches long, and 
there were about two dozen in the bundle—just a nibble 
for each horse. The horses were to go nearly thirty miles 
out and back—to be gone all day, and this was their 
feed. There is not a farmer’s boy in America that would 
have taken less than a-peclc of oats for each horse. A 
merciful man is not only merciful to his beast, hut gives 
good feed. 
The street is crowded with people and carriages, and 
especially with omnibuses;—not such gaily painted ve¬ 
hicles as we see in our own cities—but a two-wheeled af¬ 
fair, somewhat like a sulky, but more like a dray. It is 
drawn by one horse, and there is only one seat; but it 
will carry from sixteen to twenty passengers 1 Four 
persons Bit on the scat, while the others stand up or sit 
on the shafts with the driver; and there are usually four 
or five children that have a jolly time in a bag beneath 
the axle ! We meet many of these carriages coming into 
the city from the suburbs. We pass a public washing- 
place where there is a great crowd of women and girls 
round a stone trough, dipping clothes in the water and 
slapping them 011 the stones, and pounding them with a 
paddle to get the dirt out. There is not a Yankee wash 
I 
