AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
107 
connected with improved soil-culture is more im¬ 
portant to be understood than the best methods of 
saving and applying manures.” This may be so 
with reference to the Eastern States, where the 
land has been cultivated for nearly a century or 
more. But in these Western States, there is not 
much attention paid to manures. The soil is 
generally good, and will bring three or four good 
crops of wheat one after the other without any 
manure, and by occasionally changing crops and 
sowing clover, the soil can be kept in tolerable 
good condition. If farmers would pay more atten¬ 
tion to this, they could improve their crops from 
fifteen to twenty per cent, without the aid of spe¬ 
cial manures. 
“ Talks about Bee-Culture,” in the April num¬ 
ber, is also very good. There is little doubt that 
the culture of bees and the production of honey 
might be made a profitable business. It has never 
yet received the attention it demands in this part 
of the country. The deceptive promises of pat¬ 
ented hives have indeed led many to abandon bee¬ 
keeping entirely. 
Will not your correspondents give us their ex¬ 
perience in destroying or keeping mildew from 
grape-vines 1 Jonas Scholl. 
Fayette County, Ind. 
KEEPING HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
I have come to the conclusion that 1 have kept 
house just exactly long enough for my experience 
to be of. some use to somebody. “How long 1” 
you ask.“ Thirty”—“ twenty”—“ fifteen years'!” 
By no means. Exactly two years to day ; and if 
anybody doubts my capabiiily of giving any in¬ 
structions now, let them attend to the following 
dialogue, which occurred not a minute ago, and 
showed me hoiv incapable I shall probably be six 
months hence ; 
Bridget —(putting in her head from the kitch¬ 
en.)—“How did you say I was to make the pie¬ 
crust!” 
Mistress —“ Oh ! very plain ! as much flour as 
will make two pies ; just lard enough to make it 
short; wet it with a little water; and—stay, 
Bridget—don’t make it too short 1” 
On reflection, I felt proud of that receipt ; it 
sounded as if I was a very experienced house¬ 
keeper indeed. Just such Mrs. A. and Mrs. T. 
used to give me when I went to them in my de¬ 
spairs, and they are called the best housekeepers 
in Windholme. No doubt Bridget, who is rather 
quick, will make very eatable crust when she has 
spoiled a dozen or two of pies. I learned the 
same way myself; but it is most probable I shall 
go out, when I have finished this sentence, and 
tinding her standing by the pan, shall proceed to 
mix it myself, Bridget being none the wiser: 
some people think that the easiest way. 
Old housekeepers are exceedingly apt to forget 
that they were once ignorant of many things which 
now seem to them so very simple and easy, they 
are not worth telling. May not one who has just 
threaded a rocky stream remember better the ex¬ 
act position of the rocks and quicksands behind 
him than one who long ago sailed out of sight in 
the deep water!—and so the experience of a 
housekeeper of two years,who remembers her own 
beginning, may be of some use to those who have 
had no experience at all, and who find, alasl that 
old housekeepers and receipt-books alike address 
their instructions to those who know something 
already. 
Such, at least, is my opinion ; and if the Editor 
of the Agriculturist thinks likewise, I may from 
time to time drop some crumbs to the young 
housekeepers among his readers, in the shape of 
fragments from my diary, anecdotes of my fail¬ 
ures. directions “ how to do,” and “ how not to 
do it,” and occasional reflections on things in 
general, which come under the head of “ Keeping 
House in the Country.” Emily. 
Windholme, 1857. 
We shall be happy to hear from “ Emily.” 
The best “ schoolmaster” we ever had was 
one not out of his “teens,” who remembered 
the difficulties in his pathway, and taught 
us how to avoid them without carrying us 
through, as some instructors are too apt to 
do.— Ed. 
BOOK FARMING IN HOOKERTOWN. 
Mr. Editor. —I suppose every man likes 
to know how the truck he sends to market 
suits his customers. At any rate that is the 
case at my house, where a good report of 
the butter and a call for more is certain to 
keep my wife good-natured for a week. As 
her butter is tip-top, and I bring home the 
news once a week, she passes for a very 
amiable woman the year round. Now I 
suppose an editor may have some human 
nature about him, and may like to know 
how his wares suit the market, and what 
sort of influence they have upon the world. 
There has been a great change up here in 
in Hookertown, and all through Connecti¬ 
cut during the last four or five years. Since 
then we have got our State society a going, 
and new county societies have been started, 
and I guess I speak within bounds when I 
say that ten times as many agricultural pa¬ 
pers are taken as there were five years ago. 
These things have had a mighty influence 
upon farming, and I should think in our town 
the garden crops had been doubled, and full 
twenty per cent., has been added to the crops 
in the field. Some folks have got to taking 
the papers, and reading them, that I should 
as soon have expected to see reading Latin. 
Seth Twiggs was in at our house last eve¬ 
ning, and he was telling how he come to 
take the Agriculturist. I give you the story 
as he told it to me. 
“ I tell you what it is, Squire Bunker, that 
lot o’ garden sass I see’d you putting into 
the cellar last Fall did the work for me. 
You see, I’d always thought that this book 
farming was the worst kind of humbug, 
leading folks to spend a heap of money, and 
to get nothing back again. I’d heard the 
Parson and Deacon Smith, and the young 
Spouter from Shadtown, (there was a twink¬ 
le in Seth’s eye here, and a very grave look 
at Sally,) talking about guano, and what tre¬ 
mendous crops it would fetch, and then agin 
about phosphates and superphosphates, 
which was all as dark as fate te me. You 
see I thought them big words was all non¬ 
sense, and the stuff itself no better than so 
much moonshine on the land. The Deacon’s 
crops, you know, have been amazing for 
some years, and then the strawberries last 
Spring, and that lot of suss, convinced me 
that there must be something about book 
farming arter all. So I went home and 
talked the matter over with my woman, 
what the minister said, and how the crops 
came in where they used the sub-sile plow.” 
“ Well,” says she, “ Seth what is the use 
of your always standing by, and hearing 
things said that you don’t understand, like 
a stupid calf. Why don’t you ’scribe and 
take them books ?” 
“Cause why? How can I afford it ? I 
haven’t quite paid for my farm yet, and the 
baby was sick this Winter, and the doctor’s 
bill isn’t paid. And you know, wife, we have 
always gone upon the principle that ‘ a pen¬ 
ny saved is two-pence earned.’ We can’t 
spend a dollar for farming books.” 
“ Well, Seth,” says she, “ never mind. I 
can raise the dollar. ‘ Where there is a 
will there is a way.’ I can make the old 
shawl and bonnet do another year, and that 
will be ten dollars in your pocket. Every¬ 
thing that a farmer has to sell is high, at any 
rate we should think so if we had to buy it. 
1 can remember well enough when butter 
was only ten cents a pound, now it is thirty, 
and many a bushel of potatoes you have 
carried to market for twelve and a half 
cents, now they are one dollar and more. 
Seth, if you railly want them books, I’d have 
’em any how. It wont take a great deal of 
land to raise an extra bushel of potatoes, 
and if you’re put to it for help I’ll agree to 
hoe ’em.” 
“ Enough said,” says I. “ Woman I’m 
bound to have the books. So I sent a dollar 
down to Mr. Judd by the parson, the last 
time he went down to the City, and it want 
long before the January number came, as 
full of good reading as an egg is of meat. I 
had a regular set-to a reading on’t, the first 
night, and I declare if it want smack twelve 
o’clock before I gin it up. I’d got along to 
that phosphate factory, when wife spoke 
out—says she : ‘ I thought them farming 
papers was all nonsense !’” 
“ Don’t talk,” says I. “ You see this pa¬ 
per, wife, is on my side. It is showing up 
the humbug, and no mistake. And there is 
more humbug in the world than I ever 
dreamed of.” 
Upon this, Seth lit his pipe and vanished 
in smoke. Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker. 
Hookertown, April 15tli. 
“ CREAM SOAP.” 
Mrs. G. B. Alvord sends us the following : 
Take 5 pounds of washing soda; 31 pounds 
clean grease ; 5 pounds of lime, and 3 gallons of 
soft water. Slake the lime ; dissolve the soda in 
the water, and stir the two together, allowing it, 
to remain over. In the morning, pour off the 
liquid, being very careful not to let any particles of 
lime follow. Put it into an iron vessel where the 
grease has been previously warmedLpoil over 
the tire for a few minutes, stirring it during the 
time. Take it off, and in a few hours you will 
have some nice hard or “ Cream Soap,” which, 
if used for washing or cleaning house, will be 
found to he a great saving of labor, and not inju¬ 
rious to the hands or clothes. Dissolve a piece 
of it, large enough to-do your washing, in a quart 
of boiling water, making a suds, in which let your 
clothes soak all night. In the morning, wash them 
as usual. They will require very little rubbing. 
Pour a pailfull of boiling water on the lime which 
remains. Let it stand all night; pour off care¬ 
fully, and bottle it. This last is “ washing fluid,” 
which is valuable for cleaning casks, &c., using a 
cup full to a gallon of water. 
