AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
43 
Lrap-llook. 
“ A little humor, now and then. 
Is relished by the best of men." 
TAKING CAKE OF THE BABIES. 
We hazard little in saying that there are many 
farmers who take much greater care of their 
domestic animals than they do of their own off¬ 
spring. You will see their calves carefully 
watched, and every pains taken to give them a 
good start in the world, and secure good consti¬ 
tutions, while their children are allowed to 
“ come up,” or at best, they arc given over to 
the tender mercies of some antiquated “ nurse,” 
who has a routine of whims as her guide-book 
in the management of children. We have for 
some time desired to take up this subject syste¬ 
matically, and have been reading to that end. 
We find in the last number of the Country 
Gentleman an article from a New-York Physi¬ 
cian, which so nearly meets our views, that we 
gladly transfer it to our columns. 
At this season of the year, when the weekly 
bills of mortality arc calling attention to the 
alarming proportion of deaths of children under 
five years of age, our attention is naturally 
turned to their management, and it may be that 
some suggestions on this topic may be of inte¬ 
rest to the public. If the loss were as great in 
any other branch of stock-raising, we should 
have inquired into the matter, and we should 
have ascertained certain general principles of 
management; but because children are endowed 
with incipient reasoning faculties, we seem to 
forget that they are animals, and as such amen¬ 
able to physiological laws. 
The source of by far the greatest amount of 
trouble during the first six months after birth, 
is undue officiousness —the desire to do some¬ 
thing for the baby. If Providence has sent 
you such a stranger, don’t kill it with kind¬ 
ness. 
Don't feed the baby. No—not even a tea- 
spoonful of cold water. If you must feed it 
any thing, this will do it the least hurt. But 
let it alone. It will nestle about and cry a little 
when it gets hungry. Perhaps it will be twelve 
hours first. What then ? It won’t starve.— 
When it manifests uneasiness let it “ go to work 
at its trade.” When a child cries, it means that 
it is in pain. They are never cross, unless 
made so by mismanagement. Healthy children 
are always good-natured. Don’t keep a little 
dish of cracker and water on the stove, for it is as 
impossible to raise fine nurslings on any kind of 
pap, as it is to raise fine calves on hay tea. If 
you feed them any thing of the sort, it is as in¬ 
digestible to them as sawdust, and of course 
they have a turn of colicky pain, and cry; and 
of course you give them elder-blow tea, or 
poeny-root tea, or soot tea, or anise-seed tea, 
and when this proves insufficient, you resort to 
paregoric, which binds up their bowels, and 
then you resort to castor-oil, and continue at 
the same time the cracker, until you find it 
necessary to resort to the doctor. If you live 
at a distance from a physician, or your husband 
thinks it not worth while to call one, you con¬ 
tinue in this way, raising a scrawny, cross baby, 
that, as you say, “ torments the life out of you,” 
who, whatever his property expectations may 
be, is certainly entitled to a dyspepsia in rever¬ 
sion. But if from any chance the child must 
be fed—-if the natural supply of nutriment is 
absent—I do not even say deficient, (for expe¬ 
rience proves that the reasons must be very 
grave to justify a resort to artificial feeding) 
and a wet-nurse cannot be procured—the best 
practical substitute previous to the appearance 
of the first teeth, is new cow’s milk, from half 
to two-thirds water, and sweetened with loaf 
sugar. If the child throws it up, it is too strong 
of the milk or sugar, and must be further re¬ 
duced with water. Brown sugar, or even mo¬ 
lasses, may be used as a laxative, if they do not 
occasion pain, and the milk should be boiled. 
Even with the best of care it is a serious matter 
to raise a child “ by hand.” The mother’s milk 
contains just the elements, and in just the right 
proportions, for the composition of the child, 
and there is nothing else that quite does. 
As the period approaches at which the first 
teeth are to appear, the child “drools,” and 
manifests a desire to put things into its mouth. 
This is not hunger, and it is entirely unneces¬ 
sary to tie up a little bread and sugar in a rag, 
as is commonly done, and give it to suck. In¬ 
deed, all such supplementary food is injurious 
at any period of life, and the child should nurse 
or be fed at regular periods, these periods being 
more frequent as the child is younger. This 
itching of the gums is relieved by giving it some 
hard, smooth substance, as a cord, ring, or a sil¬ 
ver dollar, to chew. The child will take any 
thing that it can into its mouth, and even swal¬ 
low it, and mothers are apt to interpret this dis¬ 
position into an appetite for the food of adults. 
Some of them have a way of cramming their 
children with food that they have masticated, 
plainly saying, that they would have had them 
born with teeth. As yet the child has but little 
smell or taste, and is of course disposed to 
swallow every thing that goes into its mouth. 
The stomach, too, has begun to lose that pe¬ 
culiarity of form, by which it emptied almost as 
readily as from a tea-cup, whatever disturbed 
it, and these offensive matters begin to go off 
the “other way,” forming most untractable 
bowel complaints. 
The diet of the mother is a very important 
matter. Meat should not be eaten more than 
once a day, and with ladies who are not taking 
much exercise in the open air, even this is 
scarcely allowable. Spirituous liquors, although 
they increase the amount of its secretion, vitiate 
its quality, and may even produce cholera in¬ 
fantum with the child. A dinner of beefsteak 
will probably be followed by a cross fit with the 
baby. And generally speaking, the diet of 
nursing women is too high in quality. Enter¬ 
taining these principles, it will not be expected 
that we should stop here to bestow any remark 
on those women that delegate this kind of 
care to a wet nurse, or even resort to artificial 
feeding in order to bestow their time on balls 
and routs. 
What it Cost to Stop the Paper. —One of 
our subscribers stopped his paper for six 
months last year, because we advertised so 
much. It the mean time his farm was adver¬ 
tised for non-payment of taxes, and sold. On 
discovering the difficulty, it cost him one or two 
days’ travel with horse and buggy, and ten per 
cent, of the taxes—to say nothing of the vexa¬ 
tion, to redeem it. How much did he gain by 
stopping his paper ? He came back and sub¬ 
scribed again.— Ogdensburgh Sentinel. 
Effect of Cleanliness. —Count Rumford, 
the celebrated practical philosopher, whose 
writings have been of greater value to-man¬ 
kind than the abstruse speculations of a host 
of metaphysicians, thus described the advan¬ 
tages of cleanliness: 
“ With what care and attention do the fea¬ 
thered race wash themselves and put their plu¬ 
mage in order; and how perfectly neat, clean 
and elegant do they ever appear. Among the 
beasts of the field, we find that those which 
are the most cleanly, arc generally the most 
gay and cheerful; or are distinguished by a 
certain air of tranquility and contentment; and 
singing birds are always remarkable, for the 
neatness of their plumage. So great is the ef¬ 
fect of cleanliness upon man, that it extends 
even to his moral character. Virtue never 
dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there 
ever was a person scrupulously attentive to 
cleanliness, who was a consummate villian.'’ 
FROM THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL. 
This is one of the most pleasant and ingenious things we 
ever saw. We think we admire the pyramid more in 
ascending than in descending it : 
THE PYRAMID. 
BY G. S. PERCIVAL. 
[To be read asccndingly, descendingly and 
t condescendingly.] 
1 There 
For aye 
Commanding,'^ 
T i s standing, 
With godlike air 
Sublimely fa ir! ~ 
Its fa me desiring 
Its height admiring. 
Looks, on it from afar 
Lo! every smiling star, 
To raise the pile to Heaven 
These beauteous stones are given. 
Each pray’r for truth’s inspiring ligh 
Each manly struggle for the right, 
E a oh aspiration for the holy, 
Each kindly word to cheer the lowly. 
Each strong temptation nobly overcome. 
Each clamorous passion held in silence dumb, 
As slow it riseth towards the upper Heaven, 
Stone after stone unto the mass is given. 
Its base upon the earth its apex is the skies, 
The good man’s character a pyramid doth rise 
- * • •- 
KTJB OK RUST. 
BY EBENEZER ELLIOT. 
Idler, why lie down to die? 
Better rub than rust. 
Hark! the lark sings in the sky— 
“ Die when die thou must! 
Day is waking, leaves are shaking, 
Better rub than rust.” 
In the grave there’s sleep enough— 
Better rub than rust. 
Death perhaps is hunger-proof, 
Die when die thou must; 
Men are mowing, breezes blowing, 
Better rub than rust. 
He who will not work, shall want; 
Naught for naught is just— 
Won’t do, must do, when he can’t— 
Better rub than rust. 
Bees are flying, sloth is dying, 
Better rub than rust. 
Conscience.— Bishop Taylor has this striking 
image: Conscience is a clock, which in one 
man strikes aloud and gives warning; in an¬ 
other the hand points silently to the figure, but 
strikes not meantime ; hours pass away and 
death hastens, and after death comesjudgment!” 
There is something unspeakably appalling in 
this image. 
Arms vs. Legs.— An individual in San Fran¬ 
cisco, descanting on what he would do where he 
an editor, said, “ If I had a newspaper office, I 
would arm it.” A friend standing by, quietly 
remarked, “Yes, and at the first symptom of 
difficulty you would leg it." 
Every school-boy knows that a kite would 
not fly until it has a string tying it down. It 
isjustsoin life. The man who is tied down by 
a half a dozen blooming responsibilities and 
their mother, will make a stronger and higher 
flight than the old bachelor, who having noth¬ 
ing to keep him steady, is always floundering in 
the mud. If you want to ascend in the world, 
tie yourself to somebody. 
• G • - 
A true picture of despair, is a pig reaching 
through a hole in the fence to get a cabbage, 
that lies only a few inches beyond his reach. 
