AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
45 
termilk and sets it away in a warm place for 
use. Poor Joe has seen so much of this 
kind that he declares butter does not agree 
with his health, and will not taste it. 
Yet his wife wonders why he does not try 
it, and marvels that he does not keep a dairy 
and make butter for market. 
Jonathan was a younger brother than .Toe, 
and he has occasion to eat at his brother’s 
enough to know why he did not eat butter; 
and he declared he never would marry with¬ 
out knowing what his bread would be but¬ 
tered with. Following the bent of his fancy, 
he made several attempts at matrimony, and 
Julia Jumper almost caught him—for there 
was always good butter on the table for tea, 
but he was determined to know who made it. 
On inquiry she says ; 
La me! mother makes the butter; I take 
lessons on the piano. 
Well, says Jonathan, I want a wife that 
takes lessons on the churn—I shall look 
further. 
After several unsuccessful attempts, and 
just ready to despair, he started in pursuitof 
stray cattle before breakfast, and wandered 
through the forest in the next town, and 
weary and hungry, called at a decent look¬ 
ing house, and asked for some refreshments, 
which were cordially granted, for the family 
were what are called Scotch Irish—in reli¬ 
gion, Presbyterian, and in hospitality bound¬ 
less. 
Here he found the butter exactly right; 
though the weather was hot, the butter kept 
its shape as well as bees-wax. He cate¬ 
chised the old lady about her housewifery, 
for the bread was as right as the butter. 
The old lady said her health was feeble—she 
could do but little and Jenny had the whole 
management. He made some round-about 
inquiries concerning Jenny, and heard that 
she was a hearty blackeyed lass of two and 
twenty ; she has never seen a piano or at 
tended a ball, but new the assembly’s cate¬ 
chism, and could sing Old Hundred to a 
charm, spin flax and dam stockings, and 
was then gone to town with butter. He 
lingered, but she was delayed, and when his 
excuses for staying were exhausted, he 
started. He could not get the good butter 
out of his mind, and, how it happened, I 
know not, he soon found his way there again, 
and the result of his adventure was, he made 
a wife of Jane McKearn. And now one 
lump of his butter is worth more than Joe’s 
wife would make in a month. There’s no 
trouble in going to market—the keepers of 
the genteel boarding houses in the neighbor¬ 
ing villages send and take it at the highest 
market price. 
Now the main difference between these 
two women arise from the manner of train¬ 
ing, though there is no difference in natural 
disposition. Old Madame Sly never looked 
on to see that Sally did up her work right, 
but suffered her to shy off her work as she 
chose, and though a good housekeeper her¬ 
self was altogether too indulgent, and like 
some others thought more of getting Sally 
well married than of making her fit for a 
wife—while old Madame McKearn was de- 
ermined Jenny should be fit for any man’s 
wife, whether she got married or not. Per¬ 
haps, there is no more certain criterion by 
which to judge of a woman’s general char¬ 
acter for neatness and good housekeeping 
than by the quality of her butter. Find on 
the farmer’s table a good, solid, properly- 
salted, well-worked slice of butter, and you 
need not fear to eat cake or hash, but see a 
splash of lialfworked butter—salt in lumps, 
and a sprinkling of hair and flies’ legs, you 
may be sure that if you board there very 
long, death will not be obliged to wait long 
for you to finish your peck of dirt. 
My advice is, to young farmers, to make 
it a “ sine qua non ” in a wife, that she makes 
prime butter, and the young ladies who aspire 
to be farmer’s wives, had much better be 
imperfect in filagree and music, than be de¬ 
ficient in that most important art of making 
butter, which smooths not only the sharp 
corners of crust and crackers, but will smooth 
asperities of the husband’s temper. 
THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 
'Tis he who every thought and deed 
By rule of virtue moves ; 
Whose generous tongue disdains to speak 
The thing his heart disproves. 
Who never did a slander forge, 
His neighbor’s fame to wound ; 
Nor hearken to a false report 
By malice whispered round. 
Who vice in all its pomp and power 
Can treat with just neglect; 
And piety, though clothed in rags, 
Religiously respect. 
Who to his plighted words and trust 
Has ever firmly stood ; 
And, though he promise to his loss. 
He makes his promise good. 
Whose soul in usury disdains 
His treasure to employ ; 
Whom no rewards can ever bribe 
The guiltless to destroy. 
A FLORAL LOVE-LETTER. 
A late English paper contains a letter pur¬ 
porting to have been written by a young 
gardener to a lady whom he loved, and with 
whom he wished to wed. Whether exactly 
such a letter was actually written, and sent 
by the gardener, we have not the means of 
knowing, nor is it of much consequence. 
The letter is an ingenious one, by whatever 
means it came to see the light. It reads 
thus : 
Mv Rose, Mary :—As you are the pink of 
perfection and the blossom of May, I wish to 
tell you that my heart's ease has been torn 
up by the roots, and the peas of my holm en¬ 
tirely destroyed, since I began to pine after 
yew. My name is William Budd. At first 
I was poor, but by shooting in the spring, and 
raising a carnation fast, I obtained a celery, 
and by a little cabbaging, &c., I rose to be 
master (though something like a creeper ) of 
the whole garden. I have now full com¬ 
mand of the stocks and the mint ; I can raise 
ante-mone from a penny-royal to a plum, and 
what my expenditure leaves I put in a box 
for yew. If I may as a coxcomb speak of 
myself, I should say that I am the flower of 
manhood, that I am neither a standard nor a 
dwarf, a mushroom nor a May pole. My nose 
is of a turnip-reddish kind, and my locks 
hang in clusters round my ears. I am often 
in the company of rakes, and rather fond of 
vines and shrubs, which’ my elders reprove 
me for; as I had better berry all this, and 
say that I have a Windsor beau and that I 
have some London Pride, and as I am a 
branch of a good stock with a portly bearing, 
I well know when and where to make my 
bough. So lett-uce act for ourselves, and fix 
an early day for grafting your fate with 
mine. I am certain that we should make a 
very nice pear , and never repent, even when 
we become sage by thyme. Yew would be 
the balm of my life, and I would be the bal¬ 
sam of yours, so that people who would call 
us green now, would call us evergreen here¬ 
after. And now sweet peas be with yew ; if 
he who tried it tares me from yew, I shall 
become a melon cauliflower, and wither away; 
my tongue will always be a scarlet runner in 
your praise; for I have planted my hope in 
yew, and now I only live for the time when 
I may hear from your own tu-lips, that I am 
your own sweet William, and not your 
Weeping Wili.-o.” 
One of the Pigs. —A friend of ours was 
arguing in favor of buying large pigs, in the 
spring, declaring it much better than to buy 
small ones, as they would eat but little more. 
A neighbor differed from him in opinion, 
whereupon he told a story which took down 
his opponent, and all hearers decided that 
small pigs eat some. Said he, “ Last spring 
I bought a small pig from a drover, and he 
was good for eating, but would not grow 
much. He got so, after a week or two, that 
he would eat a large bucket full of dough, 
and after he had swallowed it all, I picked 
up the pig, and put him in the same bucket, 
I had fed him from, and the little scalliwag 
didn't fill it half full !—Lvnn News. 
Tit for Tat. —The slattern always makes 
a poor cook. The woman who don't dress 
herself, has never yet succeeded in dressing 
a beefsteak properly. Young men who con¬ 
template marriage will please notice.—Ex. 
The man who neglects his personal ap¬ 
pearance whose barn, wagon, harness, gar¬ 
den, &c.,are always in a “don’t care” style, 
will never thrive in his business. Young 
women who contemplate marriage will 
please notice. 
Fortune Knocks Once at Every One’s 
Door. —Fortune, it is said, knocks once at 
every man’s door. It is from the very rea¬ 
son, perhaps, of her knocking only once, that 
so very few people allow her to come in. 
The fact is, they mistake her for a trades¬ 
man, or a dun, or a begging letter writer, or 
the income-tax gatherer. If fortune is a 
real lady (and she is rich enough to be one), 
then, plague take her, why doesn’t she come 
without a double knock ?— Punch. 
Stock Raiser’s Arithmetic. —Three calves 
cost as follows : No. 1 cost $1; No. 2, $10 ; 
No. 3, $25. Each animal during four years 
eats 5 tuns of hay, at which time No. 1 sells 
for $40 ; No. 2 for $75 ; and No. 3 for $130, 
AVhich cat.f is the cheapest ? 
To one who said, “ I do not believe there 
is an honest man in the world,” another re- 
