1876 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
143 
sented to the arriving insect. As the insect passes 
from flower to flower, it can help no blossom what¬ 
ever to its own pollen ; but it will certainly con¬ 
vey pollen from the anthers of one blossom to the 
stigma of some other. 
A cynical acquaintance of ours, used to declare 
that love-making and matrimonial engagements, 
resulted not so much from sentiment as from situa¬ 
tion, that nearly everything depended upon conti¬ 
guity. Now the stamens and stigmas of these blos¬ 
soms are thrown very much together ; and if such 
unions were legitimate and desirable, opportunities 
surely would not be wanting. But did ever cau¬ 
tious and calculating parents and guardians take 
more pains to frustrate undesirable attachments on 
the one hand, and to promote more prudent and 
proper engagements on the other, than is shown in 
the contrivances of which these flowers furnish 
examples ? 
-- --— (P - t-m. -- 
Does the Stock Affect the Graft? 
As grafting is now in order, and the experience 
of fruit-growers should profit those who are putting 
new tops upon old trees. Do not graft upon old 
trees that are in an unthrifty or dying condition, 
until you have pruned, manured, and cultivated 
them to give them a new start. After they have 
made new shoots, and shown that they have a new 
lease of life, you may graft with profit. Do not 
graft winter varieties upon early sorts, or tart ap¬ 
ples upon sweet, if you want to secure good speci¬ 
mens of the new sorts you put in. There are many 
well authenticated facts which show that the stock 
does have some influence upon the graft. A neigh¬ 
bor of ours across the line, of an inquiring turn of 
mind, found in one orchard near him, trees of the 
Rhode Island Greening that habitually produced 
apples that rotted upon the trees in the fall, and 
none of them would keep until the new year, while 
the orchard close by bore fruit that kept well. 
Upon inquiry he found that these poor keepers 
were grafted upon early stocks and upon unthrifty 
trees. There were two causes at work to hasten 
the maturity of the apples, and make them compar¬ 
atively worthless. If you want late keepers, graft 
winter varieties upon winter stocks. There is very 
little doubt that sweet varieties are made less sweet 
by being grafted upon some stocks. Carelessness 
in selecting stocks is one of the reasons why there 
is such a wide departure from the normal type in 
many of the more popular varieties of our winter 
apples* We are eating Northern Spys this winter 
from a county on the Erie railroad, that are so dif¬ 
ferent from the Northern Spys of the counties on 
Lake Ontario, that we hardly recognize them. Our 
nurserymen ought to look after this thing, and in 
planting for nursery stocks, the seeds of early and 
late apples should be kept separate, and the young- 
stocks designed for winter varieties should be 
grown exclusively from the seeds of the best keep¬ 
ing winter apples. We have no doubt that our best 
winter apples can be improved in their keeping- 
quality by being grafted upon late keeping stocks, 
and by being grown upon well fed, vigorous trees. 
Connecticut. 
[We are glad to find so practical a person as our 
correspondent adding his testimony to what we 
have long advocated.—E d.] 
It is Never too Late to Learn, says the pro¬ 
verb, but it has taken the French people some time 
to learn about potatoes. They have now had the 
potato almost 300 years, but, as we learn from M. 
Clos, who has been writing up the history of its in¬ 
troduction and culture, the potato has hardly yet 
found its way to some districts which are well 
adapted to it; in 1832 a great land-owner was 
obliged to require his farmers to plant it, under 
penalty of forfeiting their leases, and in 1813, one 
Dr. Saint-Andre, in a book written to recommend 
the culture, assures his readers that potatoes are 
really harmless food when they are perfectly ripe, 
and have not been too recently dug. 
TOE MOUJSEHU). 
For other Household Items see “ Basket ” pages. 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Tired Out. 
I heard a sad story yesterday of one woman’s 
hard experience for a year in consequence of over¬ 
work in years preceding. She seemed to bear the 
strain of nerve and muscle pretty well, toiling on 
without complaint, until a more critical time of life 
came—a few years before her fiftieth birthday— 
when nature would endure no more. She who had 
spent herself unsparingly for others, was now al¬ 
most as helpless as a baby. Only great patience 
and toleration of all her whims saved her from in¬ 
sanity. She had most unreasonable and uncon¬ 
trollable-crying spells, and a strong dislike for some 
of her former good friends. Her physician coun¬ 
seled the family to bear with her as with a sick 
child, and by their tender care and patience she at 
last came through her troubles, to be again the 
companion and friend of her husband and children, 
but never again the drudge which they had thought¬ 
lessly allowed her to be before her long illness. 
Every day, now, I am longing for tidings from a 
friend very ne.ar and dear to me, though more than 
a thousand miles away. She too is “tired out,” 
and has been flat on her back for long weary weeks, 
unable to bear even the sound of her baby’s sweet 
prattle for more than a few minutes at a time, suck¬ 
ing her food through a tube because she cannot sit 
up to eat. Nobody knows what made her sick. 
When at last her wearied nerves and muscles gave 
way, and she was unable to leave her bed ; when the 
doctor came, he said she looked as though she 
had been sick six months. She answered that she 
had “ been tired for six months.” He said it was a 
case of simple exhaustion, and that perfect rest and 
careful nourishment were all her case required in 
the way of cure. But it is slow work, this rebuild¬ 
ing a constitution so long over-taxed and gradually 
undermined. I have often whipped myself up 
when nature begged for rest, by thoughts of this 
woman’s example. I supposed I did not work so 
hard as she, and what she could endure why could 
not I? This was foolish reasoning, since no two 
human beings are made exactly alike, and each 
must work according to individual capacity. And 
now I see that even she who worked on so patient¬ 
ly and self-sacrificing, and so seemed to bring a re¬ 
proach upon us weaker sisters, could not endure 
all things. Her case must serve as a “warning” 
instead of the “shining light” it once seemed. 
I know another woman whose heart is sometimes 
very heavy and sometimes rather bitter during the 
weary months that precede confinement. To me 
alone has she poured out her full heart. Alas! 
alas! how little help can any of us give another. 
Yet sympathy is genuine help after all. This 
woman’s mother-heart is sometimes almost broken. 
She is almost constantly tired out and discouraged. 
No other ambition has been so strong as the desire 
to be a good mother to her children, but now she 
finds herself so cross and irritable that she can 
scarcely bear the sound of her children’s voices. 
Night and day she has their constant presence, 
never one moment free from care. She has also 
many financial worries—little matters of business 
to attend to for her husband, and many a make¬ 
shift to eke out the family support. She has read, 
and knows well, the common theory of a mother’s 
responsibility for the health and disposition of her 
children, yet her nerves and muscles are constantly 
over-taxed with care and work beyond her present 
power. She longs constantly for rest, but when 
she can lie down occasionally for a nap, the thought 
of her children’s neglected education and other 
matters, that she cries herself into a headache in¬ 
stead of sleeping. 
A Few Words To Husbands. 
Wives and mothers need warning, but husbands 
and fathers need it more. They ought to save 
their wives from over-work and physical exhaus¬ 
tion. There has been much talk about the need of 
“enlightened motherhood,” but what does enlight¬ 
enment avail a slave ? Many a mother is a slave in 
her own house—a slave to the rolling-pin, the wash¬ 
board, and the sewing machine. She has no chance 
to follow her highest instincts, the cravings of an 
enlightened mother for the free and happy com¬ 
panionship of her children. The prospective 
mother has seldom the free opportunity to get 
away from the (to her) nauseating smells of the 
kitchen into the fresh air for daily exercise. She 
cannot often follow the craving for a different diet. 
Men are very ignorant concerning women. They 
generally regard them only as feebler men, full of 
foolish whims when their nerves get a little un¬ 
strung. When they come to understand the case 
better, and to reverence as they should the peculiar 
work of God in the nature of woman as the mother 
of the race, they will no longer sneer at the results 
caused by overstrain of one kind or another. 
Calves anil Babies. 
An acquaintance once complained to me that 
when she took her children into the country in pur¬ 
suit of fresh air and wholesome food for them, she 
couldn’t get the latter from the farmer’s folks 
where she boarded, because the calves had to have 
the best of everything. There was plenty of milk 
brought in, and strained, every night, but only the 
most meager supply was grudgingly allowed to her 
and her children. They could have all the butter 
they wanted, but the milk was all needed for the 
calves, and the cream skimmed from it before it 
went back to the calves was all needed for butter. 
Fine flour bread and butter, with plenty of cake 
and pie, were set before them freely, but she 
wanted something better for her growing children. 
It was vain to ask for oatmeal or graham fare, 
which would furnish something to strengthen the 
little ones as well as to fatten them. But when she 
discovered a quantity of canaille, or middlings, she 
thought perhaps the children could have some 
made into porridge to eke out their poor little sup¬ 
pers. But no ! The calves did not have enough 
milk, though they took it all, and the canaille had 
been brought home for their use. Stock-raising 
was profitable in that part of the country, but no 
one seemed to think of applying to the rearing of 
children the same common sense rules that were 
understood and accepted in respect to raising calves. 
No one would have thought it so good for the four- 
footed babies to feed them on fine flour bread, and 
cream, as to give them porridge made of shorts and 
skimmed milk, even though sour. Four-footed 
babies are treated on scientific principles, while 
precious human babies take their chances from 
ignorant and bap-hazard treatment. 
Am Arrow-root IMct. 
The other day I heard of a baby who was nearly 
starved to death on arrow-root gruel. Its mother 
had asked her physician whether arrow-root was 
healthy food for a babe. He replied in the affirma¬ 
tive without farther explanation. So she pro¬ 
ceeded to feed her child on that, and that alone. 
It pined away, and seemed at last too weak to en¬ 
dure any more of this world, and the same physician 
was summoned. “What have you been feeding 
the child?” he asked_“Arrow-root,” she an¬ 
swered-“What else?” he asked_“Nothing 
else,” replied the mother....“Why, woman!” 
exclaimed the doctor, “you have been starving 
the poor baby.” Then he explained to her 
that arrow-root contained only starch, and 
could not possibly furnish all of the material 
necessary to build up the child’s physical frame 
and furnish the various elements needed to make 
it a healthy child. A little of it would do no harm, 
but other food must be furnished. Good fresh 
milk is probably the very best food for babies lately 
weaned. Next to that I know of nothing so reason¬ 
able as gruel and soft bread, or crackers made of 
sifted graham flour without shortening or sugar. 
The canaille is really the best part of the flour, or 
the most nourishing, but if tbc bran can be ground 
fine enough to be pleasant in the eating (and this is 
possible), it is not reasonable to separate the parts 
of the wheat kernel for ordinary use. 
Bed- Bug$, 
Only those who feel a lively interest in the exter- 
