AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
199 
the world’s sages have since sprung! What 
shrewd perception of human character under all 
condition and moods—what comprehensive ex¬ 
hibition of life in its whole compass, and of Di¬ 
vine Providence in its moral aims and sure re¬ 
wards and punishments — what counsels to fru¬ 
gality, industry, moderation, prudence, benevo¬ 
lence, peace! What varied illustrations from 
man and beast, nature and art! How terse and 
polished the style! How condensed the thought! 
To think of reading the little book through in a 
day would be folly, although its lines may be 
run over in an hour. Each line is a sermon, 
and gives food for new reflection every time we 
recur to it.— Rev. S. Osgood's “God with Men." 
-• o«- 
Rising Prices. —Every thing is going up — 
except morals, in this City. Houses are going 
up. Streets are going up. People are going 
up—up town. Rents are up. We do not know 
that they can go higher. Every thing eatable is 
constantly going up ; the price is going up, up, 
up. Flour is so high at the grocer’s, that it re¬ 
fuses to rise in the kitchen. A good many will 
be put to it to raise bread, if flour rises any 
higher. Coal is so high that many people cannot 
get it to go down the coal slide to the cellar. 
Notwithstanding it is constantly falling through 
the grate—it takes a great deal of money, seven 
dollars, to raise a ton. Firewood must have 
grown on tall trees, or it never could stand up at 
present prices. Butter is so high—two and six 
pence per pound—that it will not go down poor 
folk’s throats. The supply comes from so far “up 
country” there is nothing low about it, except 
quality. Potatoes have been getting up ever 
since they were put into their beds. They took 
a rise when they were dug, and it has been hard 
digging to make a raise to reach them ever since. 
Beef, though neither high fed, nor high bred, is 
high priced enough to make up for both. Six¬ 
teen cents a pound for steak, warranted as tough 
as any white oak. Our mutton all comes from 
mountain sheep. The price is above any thing 
in the low lands. The price of pork is enough 
to make the buyer do what the pig did when he 
was seized to be killed. Chickens are all of the 
Shanghai breed. They are high enough. Tur¬ 
keys have grown quite out of reach. Even 
geese, short as their legs are, are able to rise on 
wings above the vulgar herd. Ducks have got 
up, like a flock out of a frog pond. We cannot 
raise a quack, without a dollar. Water, that 
used to run down hill to the level of common 
people, has now got away of getting up above 
their reach. You have to come down ten dollars 
to make it come up from the Croton pipes. 
Dry goods used to be low; “ selling off at cost.” 
We never hear of such things now. Even 
brandy, that used to run down so easy, is up 
now. A shilling for a drink. Every thing we 
eat, drink, and wear is—Heigh-ho, how high!— 
Tribune. 
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Average Duration of Life. —Professor Bu¬ 
chanan makes the following observations upon 
the average duration of life: “In the latter 
part of the sixteenth century, one-half of all 
born died under five, the average longevity of 
the population being about eighteen years. In 
the seventeenth one-half the population lived 
over twenty-seven years. In the latter forty 
years one-half exceeded thirty-two years of age. 
At the beginning of the present century one-half 
exceeded forty-two years; and from 1838 to 
1845 one-half exceeded forty-three. The ave¬ 
rage longevity of these successive periods has 
been increased from eighteen years in the six¬ 
teenth century up to forty-three and seven-tenths 
by our last reports.” 
Promise of marrage is like precious China— 
a man has so much to pay for his breakage. 
When Epitaphs speak truth, where will sin¬ 
ners be buried ? 
True religion shows its influence in every part 
of our conduct; it is like the sap of the living 
tree which penetrates the most distant boughs. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Messrs. Editors In a private note you re¬ 
quested me to send you a detail of the pro¬ 
cesses adopted in my family for preparing and 
cooking some favorite dishes, which you and 
others of my friends have been especially pleased 
with. 
I send you to-day another recipe, which may 
be a common one for aught I know, but it is a 
good one at any rate. As I hinted two weeks 
since, it would be a fine thing if your lady 
readers would write out some of their good and 
long tried recipes, and let them fill a column in 
your paper. If they had a few printed copies 
of these it would save a great deal of trouble 
in writing them out for their friends when they 
visit them. Yours, S * * * *. 
Stuffed Beef-steak. — Procure two thick 
slices from the round of beef. Sew these to¬ 
gether at the edges and wherever the muscles 
separate, leaving a place large enough to insert 
the hand. Chop finely together one pound and 
a half of beef-steak and half a pound of salt 
pork ; add to this three or four slices of moist¬ 
ened bread, and season well as for other dress¬ 
ing. AVith this, stuff the beef-steak; sew it up 
closely, and put it into a bag or pin a towel 
around it; put it into a pot with boiling water 
enough to cover it, and stew two and a half 
hours; then place it in a dripping-pan and re¬ 
move the cloth; pour the gravy over it, and 
bake in a hot oven from one-half to three-fourths 
of an hour. Place it in a large platter and re¬ 
move the threads. Thicken and season the 
gravy well and pour it over the meat; scatter 
small lumps of butter over the whole, and it is 
then ready for the table. 
TnE way to spoil Potatoes. —It is a little 
singular that many, who are otherwise excellent 
cooks, are ignorant of the mode of serving up 
boiled potatoes. Instead of the rich, dry, mealy 
vegetable, which graces some tables, theirs are 
invariably soggy, and heavy as bread when the 
yeast is worthless. Their method of spoiling 
potatoes after they are well cooked is wonder¬ 
fully simple. They place over the dish contain¬ 
ing them hot and smoking from the boiler, a 
tight cover, and keep it there—any one can do 
it, and eat water-logged potatoes in consequence. 
Better put their cover out of sight, even if the 
contents of the dish should cool a few minutes 
sooner on that account. Boiled potatoes in¬ 
tended for the table should not be covered a 
moment .—Norwich Examiner. 
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White Coffee Cream. —This is made by 
putting a quart of milk on the fire, with about 
six ounces of white sugar. In another vessel 
beat up the yolks of ten eggs and pour the 
milk gradually upon them. Roast your coffee 
(three or four ounces) till it is a very light 
brown color, break it in a mortar slightly, and 
add it while hot to your custard ; strain through 
a jelly-bag, pour the cream into cups, and put 
them to cool. Every thing depends on the cof¬ 
fee being used while hot, so as to catch the 
aroma which goes off as it cools. 
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HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY. 
If you happen to live in a house which has 
marble fire-places never wash them with suds; 
this in time destroys the polish. They should 
be dusted ; the spots taken off with a nice oiled 
cloth, and then rubbed dry with a soft rag. 
If you wish to preserve fine teeth, always 
clean them thoroughly after you have eaten 
your last meal at night. We have preserved 
half-decayed teeth many years by washing them 
after every meal, and rubbing them once a day 
with fresh charcoal from the fire. 
About the last of May or the first of June, 
the little millers, which lay moth eggs, begin to 
appear. Therefore brush all your woolens and 
pack them away in a dark place, covered with 
linen. They should be well wrapped in linen. 
This is easy and very efficacious. The same book 
recommends tobacco as repulsive to moth, but 
it failed entirely on trial. Solid camphor suc¬ 
ceeded well. 
If you have a strip of land do not throw away 
suds. They are good manure for bushes and 
young plants. 
Suet keeps good all the year round, if chopped 
and packed down in a stone jar, covered with 
molasses. Mince pie meat may be equally well 
preserved if boiled, chopped, and similarly 
packed. 
Do not let knives be dropped in hot dish 
water. Thousands of dollars worth of knife- 
handles are spoiled every year, by carelessness 
in this particular. 
Straw beds are much better for being boxed 
at the sides, in the same manner upholsters pre¬ 
pare ticks for feathers. If straw beds are stitched 
through like matrasses, they are greatly im¬ 
proved, and need no stirring up. 
The oftener carpets are shaken, the longer 
they wear. The dirt that collects under them 
grinds out the threads. Do not have carpets 
swept oftener than is absolutely necessary; a 
broom wears them very much. Pick up threads 
by hand, and brush crumbs into the dust pan.— 
Frugal Housewife. 
How to Deal with a Husband. —Some people 
say—“If your husband looks grave, let him 
alone ; don’t disturb or annoy him.” Pshaw! 
when I’m married, the soberer my husband 
looked, the more fun I’d rattle about his ears. 
“Don’t disturb him!” I guess so! I’d salt his 
coffee, and pepper his tea, and sugar his beef¬ 
steak, and tread on his toes, and hide his news¬ 
paper, and sew up his pockets, and put pins in 
his slippers, and dip his cigars in water, and 
would’nt stop for the Great Mogul till I had 
shortened his face to my liking. Certainly he’d 
“ get vexed;” there vrould’nt be any fun in teas¬ 
ing him if he did’nt, and that would give his 
melancholy blood a good healthful start, and his 
eyes would snap and sparkle, and he’d say, 
“ Fanny, will you be quiet or not?” and I should 
laugh and pull his whiskers, and say, “ Decid¬ 
edly not!” and then I should tell him I had’nt 
the slightest idea how handsome he looked when 
he was vexed, and then he would pretend not 
to hear the compliment—but would put up his 
dickey, and take a sly peep at the glass, (for all 
that,) and then he’d begin to grow amiable, and 
get off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all 
the rest of the evening as if he was’nt my hus¬ 
band, and all because I did’nt follow that stupid 
advice “to let him alone.” Just as if I did’nt 
know! Just i agine me, Fanny, sitting down 
like a cricket in the corner, with my fore-finger 
in my mouth, looking out the sides of eyes, 
and waiting till that man got ready to speak to 
me! You can see at once it would be—be— 
Well, the amount of it is, I should’nt do it.— 
Fanny Fern. 
-- 
Terpsichorean Fact. —One of the best things 
to resist fatigue is music. Girls who could’nt 
walk a mile to save their lives, will dance in 
company with a knock-knee’d clarionet and 
superannuated fiddle from tea time till sunrise. 
-- 
The face of Truth is not less fair and beautiful 
for all the counterfeit visors which have been 
put upon her.— Shaftsbury. 
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There are some kinds of men who cannot pass 
their time alone; they are the flails of occupied 
people.— M. de Bonald. 
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, 
where patience, honor, sweet humanity, calm 
fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.— Mal¬ 
let. 
