26 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
Skrajr-lJffok. 
“ A little humor, now and then. 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
For the American Agriculturist. 
A SHORT CHAPTER ON CONSERVATISM. 
I once heard a gentleman make the remark, 
that there was no use in going through the 
world with your head in a bag. He wished to 
see what was about him, and to listen to the 
teachings of nature and humanity whenever 
they had a lesson to impart to him. He was a 
statesman, and the affairs of nations were as 
familiar to him as the daily duties of a house¬ 
keeper are to women in the ordinary walks of 
life. 
There is always something new for the 
wisest to learn, and if we keep our heads out 
of a bag, and our eyes open, we shall be con¬ 
stantly improving. It is the conservative wbe 
makes no progress. He alone is satisfied with 
his position. He considers himself in advance 
of all others, while he, in fact, is sitting still, 
and only imagines himself moving in the right 
direction, because he sees the car in which 
others have started, and transfers its motion to 
that in which he remains stationary. 
There are conservatives among farmers, as 
well as among politicians, physicians and theo¬ 
logians. There are conservatives every where; 
among the ladies, as frequently as among the 
lords of creation. The politician fears any in¬ 
novation. He believes in the “divine right” of 
whatever is. The physician consults Hippo¬ 
crates, but Hanneman and Priessnitz are mo¬ 
derns, and have no wisdom to impart. The 
theologian pins himself to Luther or Calvin, 
but Beecher, and Bushnell and Finney are 
surely wrong, because they cannot “ frame to 
pronounce” shibboleth aright. 
The conservative farmer is afraid of agricul¬ 
tural papers, and books, and plods in the way 
his grandfather plodded before him. He will 
not use a sub-soil plow, for his grandfather 
raised good corn and potatoes, and so did his 
father, and they never turned up the ground 
with any thing but an old-fashioned plow. A 
cultivator is a modern improvement, and not to 
be compared with a hoe—a seed-sower is a pro¬ 
fitless innovation on the old modes of planting. 
What a pity it is that such people cannot find 
some of the implements of husbandry that 
were used by Noah, or his immediate descend¬ 
ants. In their estimation they would be the 
most valuable that could be found, especially if 
they had been used through continuous gener¬ 
ations, down to the present time. 
Conservative house-wives are equally at¬ 
tached to all that is old, and wish no modern 
improvements to make their way into parlor, 
kitchen, or pantry. It is surprising, that they 
should be so averse to inventions which would 
lighten their labors, and give them more leisure 
for intellectual improvements, and the instruc¬ 
tion of their children. A washing-machine is 
of no use. It is better to rub their sheets by 
the hand, than to do them in one-third of the 
time, and with less labor, by the aid of some 
Yankee invention. A mangle, for smoothing 
clothes, cannot lift up its head among the pol¬ 
ished sad-irons, although it would emancipate 
the laundress from hours of fatigue. The num¬ 
berless little contrivances to aid in domestic 
labor, are entirely discarded because they are 
new, and not sanctioned and recommended by 
long usage. Above all others, a sewing-ma¬ 
chine is an abomination, and many a wearied 
woman sits up night after night to stitch, stitch, 
stitch, when in an hour, a machine would have 
performed the same work far better than she 
has done it, and have afforded her abundant 
leisure to woo “nature’s sweet restorer, balmy 
sleep.” 
The more the intellectual and spiritual nature 
of individuals is developed, the more they will 
desire to be freed from the drudgery of uneces- 
sary labor, and, while willing to do any thing 
which their circumstances render necessary, 
they will gladly accept any mechanical aid, 
which is offered them. Labor for a good pur¬ 
pose is always honorable ; but man is some¬ 
thing more than a mere animal, and has other 
wants than those which are connected with 
his physicial nature. So long as no cunning 
artificer has provided him with an instrument 
more effective than his own hand, let him use 
that cheerfully, not grugingly, but when that 
hand can wield a power more productive than 
itself, why yield the proffered aid ? 
There is something to me degrading in the 
thought, that beings, made only a little lower 
than the angels, should be willing to place them¬ 
selves on a level, or below the level, of wood 
and steam, or any of those agents which may 
be made subservient to the comfort of mankind. 
woman who would not melt into softness 1 1 
words of gentle remonstrance, uttered in gentle 
tones, as the snow melts before the sun. 
There is no surer sign of a high degree Oi 
culture and enlightenment than the deference 
which is shown to woman. All those British 
travelers by whom our country has been abused, 
from Basil Hall to Charles Dickens, have agreed 
upon one thing—in giving to Americans great 
praise for the universal respect and tenderness 
which they show to ladies. When a lady enters 
any apartment, whether a parlor, a concert- 
room, or a theatre, the American gentleman 
rises and gives her his seat, if he sees that she 
has none. The French are said to be the pol¬ 
itest people in the world. But does a French¬ 
man resign his seat at the opera for a stranger 
lady? Would he relinquish it even to one of 
his female acquaintances ? I guess not. I am 
sure that John Bull would growl most vocifer¬ 
ously if it were hinted that he was expected to 
do any thing of the sort. No; he would keep 
the seat he had paid for, if Queen Victoria were 
standing beside him ; though it is possible that 
loyalty would prompt him to do what gallantry 
would not. 
I honor this trait of self-sacrifice toward wo¬ 
men, in my countrymen. I hope they will 
never be divested of it. I trust that our very 
finished young gentlemen, who come home from 
their European tour,—many with fewer new 
ideas in their heads than hairs on their faces,— 
will not bring back with them foreign notions 
of how “ the fair sex ” should be treated. 
Let us rather increase than diminish our 
sentiments of chivalrous devotion ; let us rather 
testify our perfect estimation of those virtues 
by which women are peculiarly distinguished, 
by the most scrupulous regard for their comfort, 
and a never-failing respect for their feelings. 
Park Benjamin. 
I have no objection to sewing on a button, or 
making a button-hole, but when I find myself 
slowly and laboriously stitching up a seam 
which I am conscious a sewing-machine could 
do in a hundreth part of the time, and in far 
greater perfection than I could do it, I confess 
I cannot but feel that I am wasting precious 
moments, w r hich once gone can never be re¬ 
called, and that I am outdone in all my efforts 
by lifeless, mindless, soulless matter. 
Anne Hope. 
-»•#- 
DEFERENCE TO WOMAN. 
If our great progenitrix first tempted to sin, 
the majority of her daughters have ever since 
been making amends for this bad behavior of 
their mother Eve, by teaching virtue. I can 
say, with the utmost sincerity, that the older I 
grow, and the more ripened grows my experi¬ 
ence, mjr respect—nay, my reverence—for the 
sex is augmented. If I hear a good deed attri¬ 
buted to a woman, I believe it, of course; if I 
hear a woman maligned and slandered, I take it 
for granted that the slander is false. And in 
nine cases out of ten, it is false. In nine cases 
out of ten, any defamation of the female char¬ 
acter arises from jealousy, or envy, or revenge, 
or, what is quite as inexcusable, a mere love of 
gossip. I value most highly the friendship of 
a woman;—because it is so pure, so disinter¬ 
ested, so utterly free from any alloy whatsoever. 
I consider myself most happy when I am able 
to add the name of an intellectual female to the 
catalogue of my friends. If I wanted solace in 
disappointment, sympathy in misfortune—nay, 
more, relief in adversity, to her would I resort 
with a most unhesitating reliance. Her heart 
is the very fountain of kindness; her hand 
“open as the day to melting charity.” 
The scriptures say that “ a continual drop¬ 
ping in a very rainy day and a contentious wo¬ 
man are alike.” But what makes her conten¬ 
tious? In most instances, the injustice and 
harshness of men. His experience in the sex 
must differ widely from mine, who ever knew a 
THE FASHIONABLE OLD LADY AT NEWPORT. 
A writer in the Journal of Commerce, over 
the signature of J. M. M., thus speaks of her. 
There is one other representative character 
here, of whom I wish to say a few words. It 
is the fashionable old lady ,—a character always 
to be found at watering places, and one emi¬ 
nently fit “ to point a moral and adorn a tale.” 
But, instead of describing her to you in my own 
words, let me borrow those of a celebrated Bos¬ 
ton clergyman, used in the course of a sermon 
which he recently preached on “ Old Age.” He 
is speaking of a woman who has sought chiefly 
admiration of the world : 
“ Her life is vanity long drawn out, the only 
frailty which joined her to mankind. Now, she 
is an old woman of fashion—wearing still the 
garments of her earlier prime, which, short and 
scanty as they were, are yet a world too wide 
for shrunken age to fill. How ill those gaudy 
ruffles become the withered dew-lap that hangs 
beneath her chin! Her life has been a long 
cheat; she has had no calculation but for vanity, 
setting a trap to catch a compliment; it is fit 
her age should be a deceit. That color—the 
painter did it; the plumpness—it is artificial; 
the hair—false; the teeth—are purchased at a 
shop; the hands—all glove and bone, and great 
big veins ; the tongue—it was always artificial 
and false, it needs no other change. Yet she 
apes the tread of youth. Alas! poor fly! For 
this you have lived; nay, flirted !—it is not life. 
This, then, is the end of the waltzes, and polkas, 
and cracoviennes; this is the pay for the morn¬ 
ing study over dress, the afternoon prattle 
about it, the evening spent in putting on this 
gaudy attire! Poor creature 1 in youth, a worm; 
in wmmanhood, a butterfly; in old age, your 
wings all tattered, your plumage rent, a ‘ fin¬ 
gered moth,’—old, shrivelled, sick, perching on 
nothing, and perishing into dust; the laughter 
of the witty; the scorn of the thoughtless ; only 
the pity of the wise and good! What a three- 
act drama is her life—youth, womanhood, age! 
Vanity sits there in front of the stage, known 
