38 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
fate* Department. 
JOURNAL OF A FARMER’S WIFE. 
A 'WASHING-MACHINE-PRESERVING QUINCES. 
I have long had a great desire to contribute my 
mite to the Ladies’ Department of the Agri¬ 
culturist, as I think it the bounden duty of every 
farmer’s wife to do her best to assist in improv¬ 
ing and elevating her sex, more especially in the 
rural districts. Besides, a woman best under¬ 
stands what is most appropriate for this depart¬ 
ment; and I have often felt it as a disgrace to 
us, that we did not contribute more frequently 
to the agricultural literature of the day. In 
some other walks of literature—poetry, romance, 
essays, history, and even science, for example- 
ladies are taking a prominent part. Why, then, 
not in agriculture, more especially in horticul¬ 
ture and housewifery ? 
But how best serve my sex ? The idea of a 
journal suggests itself. “What, a daily chro¬ 
nic^ of dull household affairs?” I hear the 
reader exclaim. Certainly: why not ? These are 
the very things we ought best to know; things 
which should most interest us after our moral 
duties, and these, if I may say so, are minor 
morals; then why not a daily chronicle of them, 
with suggestions for the benefit of my sex? 
Such, Mr. Editor, are the conclusions which I 
have come to; and with great deference, and a 
trembling hope that something from my manu¬ 
script may be found worthy of going into type, 
I send you the pages of the first week of my 
journal. 
Monday, Sept. 10.— This is washing-day; 
heigh-ho! how I dread it! Scarcely had this 
exclamation dropped from my lips, when Biddy, 
my Irish girl, came running from the wash-room 
into the kitchen, where I was putting up the 
breakfast dishes, both hands raised up higher 
than her head, and her eyes glowing with asto¬ 
nishment. 
“ O Ma’am, here’s the quarest thing ye iver 
saw, and it works so nately; the baby’s wash¬ 
ing the clothes as white as linen ever bleached 
in blessed swate Ireland that was, afore the 
famine cursed it.” 
I dropped my dishes and ran for the wash¬ 
house, and there, to my surprise, was the 
‘‘baby” indeed, (for Biddy had been his nurse 
in infancy, and could never be made to designate 
him in any other way, the affectionate creature,) 
meaning by this, my youngest child, Johnny, a 
boy little over seven years old. Well, there he 
was, sure enough, perched on a chair, with both 
hands fast hold of the end of a small shaft, 
drawn easily on a roller up an inclined post, with 
an upright wash-board at the other end, moving 
back and forth in a square, half-open box, set 
on legs. Into this box was poured the hot soap¬ 
suds ; the clothes were put in, and the wash¬ 
board then operated upon them precisely 
like the hammer of an old-fashioned fulling- 
mill. 
And neatly, as Biddy said, was the work 
done; for the linen came out as white, almost, 
as the driven snow, while Johnny splashed 
away with great glee, under the direction of 
Willy, an older brother, thinking it capital fun, 
my husband standing by at the same time, laugh¬ 
ing most heartily; for he had purchased and 
brought home the machine, and set it to work 
without my knowledge, in order to give me a 
pleasurable surprise. 
“Well, Bessy, my dear, you won’t dread 
washing-day hereafter,” said my husband. 
“No, indeed,” I replied, “if Johnny can do 
the work so easily for the future, and so much 
to his own satisfaction!” 
“Yes, mother,” spoke up Willy, “but I am 
helping too. You would n’t see the clothes so 
white, if it wa’ n’t for my softening your hard 
water.” 
“ How is that ?” I asked. 
“Oh, that is a chemical secret, to be told 
hereafter; wait a little, and see how they dry.” 
Well, wait I must, I suppose, for it does not 
answer to learn too many good things at once. 
However, as soon as I get the secret from Willy, 
my female readers shall find it openly printed 
in the pages of the Agriculturist —a secret to 
them no longer. In the meanwhile, I am quite 
contented to-day with having my washing done 
without my aid, as it is the most laborious and 
irksome of my weekly work, if I except baking; 
nor shall I be in a hurry to pry into the occult 
secret of the thing, if I am a woman. 
Tuesday, 20 th .—The clothes have dried beau¬ 
tifully. I certainly never saw the like; and I 
doubt whether “blessed swate Ireland” itself, 
as Biddy calls it, could show whiter. Only a 
few spots now and then, from the dirty feet of 
one of our mischievous little terrier puppies, 
that got out of the yard and ran over a small 
part of the linen which was drying on the green 
grass. 
Early in the evening, finished ironing; read 
a little in Mrs. Loudon’s Gardening for Ladies, 
and then retired, somewhat fatigued. 
Wednesday, 21st.—Determined to have an 
easy day of it. Did up my morning’s work, 
and then gathered the seed-pods of a few of my 
later summer flowers; the best method of dry¬ 
ing and preserving of which, I will give some 
time hereafter. In the afternoon, I went riding 
a short time with my husband, as he wanted to 
show me the fine action of a young horse he 
was now breaking to harness. He went very 
nicely indeed. 
Thursday, 22 d. —Having finished such peaches 
as are proper for drying for the present, to-day 
I made an attack upon the quinces for preserv¬ 
ing. They arc not fully ripe yet; but as they 
are rotting rapidly upon the trees, and quite 
wormy, if I do not pick them immediately, I 
shall not get enough to make sufficient preserves 
for family use. 
I find a great difference of opinion among my 
neighbors in regard to the best variety of 
quinces for preserving, and am therefore deter¬ 
mined for my own satisfaction to experiment on 
the three best, namely, the Portugal, the Apple¬ 
shaped, and the Pear-shaped ; for we have them 
all in abundance in our orchard. 
Well, I have had a laborious and ungrateful 
task of it to-day; for out of seven bushels and a 
peck of quinces, I doubt whether I shall make 
as many preserves as I did last year out of one 
third the quantity, so worm-eaten and decayed 
was the fruit. Determined to ask my husband 
the reason of this after supper. 
The evening meal being finished, and the 
dishes washed and put away, I took my knitting 
and sat down on the opposite side of the round 
table in the breakfast-room, where my husband 
was amusing himself with his weekly agricultu¬ 
ral paper, after a pretty hard day’s work cutting 
and shocking corn. I found him in the midst 
of the Price Current; and occasionally, stopping 
the perusal, he seemed to be thinking aloud. 
“ Well, this looks favorable for corn and wheat, 
after all. It is true that there is a slight fall in 
the market; but then the paper tells us there 
are short crops in Europe, and a prospect of 
higher prices. Now, that looks reasonable; so 
I’ll not sell my wheat on Saturday, as I was 
contemplating—would you, Bessy ?” he added, 
looking over to me. 
“ La, how should I know ? I don’t study the 
markets.” 
“ But you should then, my dear. I tell you 
the market reports, after all, are the most impor¬ 
tant part of my paper; and if it wa’n’t for that, 
I wouldn’t take it, for they can’t teach me any 
thing about farming. Sometimes I think it’s all 
humbug, these editors talking so much. How¬ 
ever, some of them are pretty smart fellows, 
considering they are not on a farm, and occa¬ 
sionally write as if they took hold of the plow, 
the hoe, and the axe themselves, now and then.” 
Pausing a moment and looking up hard at the 
ceiling, he added, “Well, I do declare, they 
help me to a good improvement once in a 
while ; for I recollect-” 
“ Never mind, if you please, husband, about 
your recollections just now,” I replied, a little 1 
impatiently, “ and please tell me instead, why 
the quinces are so bad this year. Look, here is 
all I have been able to cut and pare from that 
great heap we picked this morning.” 
“ Indeed !” and you may be assured that he 
raised his eye-brows with no little astonishment. 
“Well, Bessy, I tell you this all comes from 
want of pruning. Don’t you recollect you would 
scarcely let me cut a limb last spring? They 
are planted along the road through the orchard, ‘ 
and you said you wanted them for shade; and 
then they looked so beautifully in May, with 
their pink and snowy blossoms, and so superb 
in autumn, with their golden fruit, rivalling the 
orange-walk of our wealthy neighbor, Mr. Rich, 
when he takes the trees which form it out of 
his conservatory in June, and places them in 
their neat green boxes, grouped so handsomely 
with other shrubbery on the lawn.” 
At this point up spoke my eldest boy, Willy, 
who had sat down by my side to study a lesson 
in agricultural chemistry. 
“ Now, father, can this be entirely so? Why, 
my Fruit Book says the quince is a shrub or 
bush, and not a tree ; and that it does not re¬ 
quire trimming, like the apple.” 
“ Your book is a dunce, then. Don’t I know 
better than all that? Just you look over the 
way there to-morrow morning, at Dr. Particu¬ 
lar’s garden, and see a quince tree growing up 
with as handsome and straight a trunk, though 
of course not so tall, as the finest apple tree you 
ever looked at since you were born ; and then 
its top is round and full as a half globe, and 
the branches hang down like a weeping willow, 
almost to the ground ; and they are loaded, too, 
with the fairest and largest of fruit. Why, my 
boy, that single tree will yield more quinces 
this year than a baker’s dozen of our shrubs or 
bushes, as your stupid book calls them.” 
I thought this rather a poser to poor Willy, 
and was about suggesting some palliation, 
when he gave his scalp-lock a strong pull, and 
quickly replied, “That may be as you say, 
father, but Dr. Particular tells me quite a dif¬ 
ferent story. He says a few years ago this tree 
and all the rest on his premises were stunted in 
growth, and produced no better fruit than ours ; 
but his knowledge of the constituents of a soil 
and of quince fruit and wood, told him what to 
