346 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
do is to say, “My dear, you should control 
your temper,” and the work is done. If 
prone to other faults, they are as readily 
overcome. 
I pity any woman who has so little flexi¬ 
bility of character that she cannot conform 
to circumstances, and make her cherished 
plans conform also. A love of order and 
method is truly desirable, but it should never 
lead to vexation of spirit, or make others 
unhappy. Books are useful assistants, both 
as it regards housekeeping and the education 
of children—but they are only assistants. 
Each mother must judge for herself what 
course of discipline it is best to pursue—and 
each housekeeper must choose for herself 
the method best adapted to her circum¬ 
stances. 
I have no love of untidiness, and 1 must 
confess I have no very great love for the 
excessive neatness which reduces some 
women to slavery, with a scrubbing brush for 
a master. “ There is a beautiful medium,” 
as a Shaker acquaintance of mine once said, 
“ which is the perfection of all virtue ” in 
housekeeping. 
I do not suppose all women can be equally 
good housekeepers. “ It is no more reason¬ 
able,” I heard a gentleman of some distinc¬ 
tion remark, “ to expect all women to be 
good housekeepers, than to expect all men 
to be good lawyers.” Yet as women's 
sphere of labor is generally within the do¬ 
mestic circle, it is her duty to exert herself 
to make it as pleasant as possible both to 
herself and others. She should not look 
upon household cares as beneath her atten¬ 
tion. Nothiug which affects our health or 
comfort is of trivial importance. A healthy 
mind can scarcely exist in an unhealthy 
body. Our children should be taught to 
make themselves useful. Our daughters 
should early be initiated in the mysteries of 
housekeeping, and should grow up with a 
willingness to do whatever they find neces¬ 
sary to be done. It is mistaken kindness in 
a mother to toil wearily from morning till 
night, and permit her daughter to sit in the 
parlor to entertain company, and to busy 
herself wiih embroidery, or with the last 
novel. No daughter who remembers the 
“ commandment with promise,” can be hap¬ 
py in such selfish indulgence, for she does 
not honor her mother. She does not appre¬ 
ciate what has been done for her, and sooner 
or later, retribution will come. 
The daughters of farmers should be 
taught to respect their fathers’ occupation— 
the most independent on earth—they should 
dignify it by a proper performance of the 
duties it devolves upon them, and by a 
proper cultivation of their minds, such as 
circumstances permit. Their manners, too, 
should not be neglected. They should be 
civil and polite in their treatment of their 
associates, and avoid everything which is 
ill-bred or vulgar. They can learn much 
from books, which may aid them, but let 
them beware of affectation—nothing is more 
offensive to good taste. Anna Hope. 
Of seven thousand children who are every 
year brought into the celebrated foundling 
hospital in Paris, not 200 are alive at the end 
of ten years,' 
AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS OF FRANCE AND 
THE UNITED KINGDOM. 
Prof, de Lavergne, in his Rural Economy 
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland, states that the value of agricultural 
products in France is about one thousand 
millions of dollars ; that of the United King¬ 
dom, eight hundred millions of dollars. Of 
these the animal products of France are only 
three hundred and twenty millions, while 
those of the United Kingdom are four hun¬ 
dred millions of dollars. M. de Lavergne 
thus infers, that the system of agriculture 
in France is more exhausting than that of the 
United Kingdom, because, we suppose, more 
manure is made from the larger number of 
animals kept by the farmers of the latter. 
We doubt this, however, as the French are 
more saving of their poudrette than the En¬ 
glish, Scotch or Irish. We think, also, they 
are more careful in gathering together other 
materials of fertility, which run to waste 
among the latter. 
We are rather surprised to find so many 
small farms still left in England. M. de La¬ 
vergne states that there is no less than 
200,000 persons there holding farms of an 
average of 150 acres. He further adds, 
that 
“ In France there are about 100,000 landed 
proprietors, who pay upwards of 300 francs of 
direct taxes, and whose fortunes average 
those of the mass of the English proprietors. 
Of these 50,000 pay 500 francs and upwards. 
Estates of 500, 1,000, and 2,000 hectares are 
freqently to be met with, and territorial for¬ 
tunes of 25,000 1o 100,000 francs and up¬ 
wards of rent are not. altogether unknown. 
We may have, probably, about 1,000 large 
proprietors, who, for extent of domain, rival 
the second grade of English landlords, by 
far the most numerous of the class. It is 
true we have proportionable fewer of them 
than our neighbors, and immediately follow¬ 
ing our chateaued gentry swarm the host of 
small proprietors, while the English gen¬ 
try have at their back the immense fiefs of 
the aristocracy. To this extent, but only to 
this extent, it is correct to say that property 
is more concentrated in England than it is in 
France. The parent in either country may 
devise his property as he chooses, and this 
is frequently done ; besides, other common 
and more urgent reasons induce a deviation 
from that appropriation which is provided by 
law. In France, dowries to married daugh¬ 
ters reconstitute in part what the law of 
succession destroys. In England, if real 
property is no tdivided, moveable is ; and in a 
country where personal property is so consid¬ 
erable this division cannot fail, through sales 
and purchases, to exercise an influence upon 
the partition of fixed property. The more rap¬ 
id increase of population with our neighbors is, 
in its turn, another element which distributes 
property. In fact, properties are being con¬ 
stantly divided in England, and every day 
new country residences are constructed for 
new country gentlemen ; at the same time 
many properties are being reconstituted in 
France, and the assessment returns show 
that the increase in the number of the large 
is greater than that of the small. 
The Repository and Whig, under the head 
“ Qilligraphs and Sissorings,” inserts the 
following: 
“ No family should be without it. Our 
remark has reference to the Whig.” 
Very handsomely and truly said.—E ds. 
WILL GOOD BREAD EVER BE A COMMON BLES¬ 
SING IN THIS COUNTRY 1 
We fear not till some more efficient steps 
are taken by the managers of the various 
agricultural societies than they seem as yet 
to have even dreamed of. Something more 
is needed to reach the root of the difficulty 
than the award of a premium for the best 
bread at an exhibition. Particulars are as 
important in such a case as a minute 
description of the process of making butter, 
such as has frequently been given to country 
societis by successful competitors for prizes. 
The kind of practical knowledge that shall 
enable ohers to attain the desired result, 
is the very thing most needed, and which 
seems thus far to have been overlooked. 
A recent exhibition in London shows that 
in this matter of bread making as well as 
many other of the arts of life, “ knowledge 
is power.” It was by a French firm in that 
city, showing the method by which, by a pe¬ 
culiar modification of the fermenting process, 
the amount of bread from a given weight of 
flour could be increased at least fifty per 
cent. Two sacks of flour were used, one 
being manipulated in the ordinary way, the 
other by the French manufactures. The 
first sack converted into bread by the usual 
method, produced ninety loaves weighing 
360 lbs. The second bag of flour placed in 
the hands of the French bakers, produced 
one hundred and fifty-four loaves, weighing 
520 lbs.—an increase which, it is asserted, 
could not have arisen from any weighty 
substance being mixed with the dough, by the 
French bakers, as no extraneous ingredient 
could be discovered in the loaf by the most 
rigid chemical analysis. 
There is unquestionably a great lesson to be 
learned in the economy of the use of flour, 
as well the production of a palatable and 
wholesome article of diet made from it, of 
our French neighbors. It has for years been 
the uniform testimony of tavelers in all parts 
of the country, that at all public houses, and 
even in the meanest way-side inns, the bread 
furnished is invariably of excellent quality. 
It follows as a matter of course that their 
knowledge on this subject is very superior 
to that of the great majority of our own peo¬ 
ple, and that a friendly interchange of ideas 
would very much promote our comfort and 
increase our happiness. [Cambridge Chron. 
Setting Hens. —In setting hens, thirteen 
eggs are enough to give them ; a large hen 
might cover more, but a few stronger, well 
hatched chicks are better than a large brood 
of weaklings, that have been delayed in the 
shell perhaps twelve hours over the time, 
from insufficient warmth. At the end of a 
week, it is usual, wilh setting turkeys, to add 
two or three fowl’s eggs, “ to teach the young 
turkeys to pick.” The plan is not a bad one ; 
the activity of the chickens does stir up 
some emulation in their larger brethren. 
The eggs take but little room in the nest, 
and will produce two or three very fine 
fowls. [Dr. Kirtland, Albany. 
How to Rear Pigs. —I have a fine Suffolk 
sow, which lately had a litter of ten pigs ; 
in the course of forty-eight hours after the 
pigs were born, she killed six of them, by 
over laying and smothering them. I was re¬ 
lating and lamenting the loss, in the presence 
of an Irish girl that lives in my family, and 
she immediately said, if they had been in her 
country, all would have been saved. I said, 
Mary, how do they manage pigs in your 
country 1 “ Dear a me !” she replied, “ we 
put them all in a box, so the mother can’t 
hurt them.” “ Well, how do you feed them 1” 
I inquired. “ O bless my soul,” said she, 
“ we put them with the mother several times 
during the day, until they are a week old, and 
then they can take care of themselves,” 
