218 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Remedy for Winter Kill. — This disease 
sometimes attacks cattle and sheep early in 
spring—occasionally terminating fatally, even 
before that period. The following recipe was 
given by a Western cattle doctor, and is found 
a sure preventive or cure: 
R.—Refug. opt. q. s. 
Zea. pulv. q. s. 
Aq. font. q. s. 
Which the unprofessional reader may translate : 
good shelter, corn meal, and clean water—the 
Zea pulv. to be applied as a poultice to the mu¬ 
cous membrane of the stomach. It may be 
well to add that the croics denounce the above 
recipe as rank quackery, and a gross infringe¬ 
ment of their rights and privileges. We hope 
none of our readers will remain strangers to its 
virtues.— Rural New- Yorker. 
-3 O C- 
COUNTRY-LIFE BEYOND CITY REACH. 
Cobweb Cottage, Skaneateles, Nov. 12, 1853. 
I am a man of few words and no literary pre¬ 
tensions, but have read so much in your columns 
of Idlewild, that I feel tempted to give my own 
experience of a country life. 
I am marrie!, and the father of a family, 
which, (i. e., the family,) is now twelve months 
old, just big enough to toddle around and be 
troublesome. 
In the city I was doing a good business in 
sugars and teas, and in a fair way of becoming- 
one of the “merchant princes;” but Fanny 
(my wife) was a constant reader and great ad¬ 
mirer of Mr. Willis, and withal rather romantic, 
so that she soon got her head full of groves, and 
vales, and mountain streams, and whatnots, and 
began to pine for a sweet little cot, embowered 
in honeysuckles, etc., and declared that her 
health was failing, and she really could not live 
without the pure air of the country. As I came 
home weary from the store, she would sit for 
hours talking like a little sage of the vanity of 
wealth, and depict, as only a woman can, the rus¬ 
tic joys of our future rustic home, hundreds of 
miles away from the dust of the city, amid green 
fields flowing, like the land of promise, with milk 
and honey, (she knew I had a partiality for 
milk and honey,)—then, my morning walks on 
the Battery had given even me a kind of hank¬ 
ering after the country—so, at last, I could not 
resist the entreaties of the dear girl any longer. 
My business was closed up, and in the spring 
off we started to look for a location. We ar¬ 
rived there, and Fanny was charmed—it was so 
quite, and so retired, and so far away from the 
noisy railroads. True a steamboat passed once 
a day, but that looked romantic, in the distance ; 
then there were lakes, hills, valleys, groves, 
streams, cataracts, and all the essentials that 
enter into a poetical paradise. 
Why go farther? I pitched on a spot where 
my taste could be best displayed, paid roundly 
for it, and began in earnest. A little rickety 
house adjacent was hired pro tem. , and Fanny 
thought she would be “so happy." Every 
bungling carpenter and mason in the country 
was enlisted — agricultural and architectural 
books from Johnston to Downing were ran¬ 
sacked, and, by gigantic exertions, we have 
lately moved into one of those modern abomi¬ 
nations—<t cottage! All kinds of trees from the 
nurseries were planted out, and my wife for 
some time superintended the laying out of 
hedges and gravel walks, and the planting of 
flowers. She was delighted at first, but soon 
tired. The trees wouldn't grow, the flowers 
died, the gravel was constantly washed away 
by the rains; then there was no society, no 
chatting, no shopping; but she put a good face 
on the matter, and said when the house was 
finished we would be very cosy and comfortable. 
I worked like a hero, digging down hills, filling- 
up hollows, levelling rough places, and making 
level ones rough—getting pitched over the dirt- 
scraper, and meeting with a hundred annoying 
accidents. I was continually vexed by my 
own blunders. Our privations, too, were no 
trifles. Our servants, or “helps,” as they call 
themselves, were as worthless as independent, 
always getting things wrong, and knew nothing 
about cookery ; and even had they known, there 
was scarcely any marketing to be had, and we 
were obliged to put up pretty much with fresh 
eggs, butter and milk, and the few other things 
that could be raised on the place. But I kept 
quiet, though beginning to realize my folly, 
hoping for better times. The autumn set in, 
and as the cottage was pronounced habitable by 
the builders, we moved into it. The work gen¬ 
erally was pretty much suspended, and I 
thought we would rest till spring. When I 
began to cast up accounts, I was astonished to 
see how fast capital was eaten up, for, as we 
came from the city, every one supposed we must 
be rich, and, of course, charged double for 
every thing. 
Fanny revived when the forest began to put 
on a thousand hues ; the weather was delight¬ 
ful ; we were in the new house, and for a week 
or two were very happy. But our trials had 
not begun. There came a freshet, such as Idle- 
wild never saw. Trees were uprooted, terraces 
levelled, gullies washed deep in every walk, 
hedges destroyed, and every thing turnedtopsy- 
turvy. Then came the rains; all was mud. 
Then a snow storm ; all was slush. Then frost, 
and more snow. The cow dried up! The house 
was cold ; wind came in every where. The roof 
leaked ; fires wouldn’t burn. Out of doors and 
in doors, there was no comfort. Fanny got 
sick ; first a cold, then chills, then the “ fevern- 
nager,” as they call it here. I had borne up a 
long while, but could stand it no longer, and at 
last, when the hens refused to lay, my pent-up 
feelings found vent in doleful lays—which really 
did console us a little. Fanny has been looking 
over the spelling and punctuation of one of them, 
brushing up the Trokeys, Daktils and I-am-bixs, 
as she calls them, a little; and as she was edu¬ 
cated in an up-town boarding-school, I suppose 
it’s all right. She say’s it’s just as good as any 
thing Miss Ophelia Jenkins ever wrote, and she 
used to “ write for the papers;” and “ she knows 
the ‘Home Journal’ Editors will publish it if I 
send it, and it ought to be published just to 
show folks what’s what!” 
I don’t want to be troublesome, gentleman; 
but perhaps the verses might reach, and be a 
warning to some of my city friends, who are 
carried away by this rural mania, now so com¬ 
mon. For my part, I think your Idlewilds are 
all very well for your wild, idle chaps who have 
plenty of money and nothing to do ; but a man 
who can’t afford to support two houses, one in 
the country for summer, and one in the city for 
winter, had better stay at home and attend to 
his business. With great respect, your obedient 
servant, Walter Wildkake. 
P. S. I want to sell my fancy farm, and if you 
could let me have the use of your columns, I 
might write in quite a different style, and make 
Cobweb Cottage as romantic, on paper, as any 
other country vi’la. All the elements of poetry, 
lake, groves, etc., abound, and Fanny thinks, 
between us, that with her poetical ideas, and my' 
rhymes, we might write something “ real nice.” 
W. W., in Home Journal. 
-»UO- 
Singular Ignorance. —An old farmer, intent 
on making his will, was asked by the lawyer 
for the name of his wife, when he gravely replied, 
“ Well, indeed, I really don’t recollect what it 
is ; we’ve been married for upwards of forty 
years, and I always call her my old woman.” 
The lawyer left a blank to be filled up when his 
old woman’s name was ascertained. 
Manly worth, elevation of intellect, and en¬ 
thusiasm, are to me the noblest things on earth, 
superhuman, and the best pledge of our higher 
destination, heavenly origin and divine destina¬ 
tion. 
- 1 - 9 -*- -— 
It is only necessary to give to each thing the 
time which it claims. — Ange Pandolfini. 
Rash, fruitless war, from wanton glory waged, 
is only splendid murder.— Thompson. 
Yankee Characters. —Miss Bremer, in her 
work on America, has the following : 
I must beg leave to tell you a little about 
what I think a Yankee is, or what he seems to 
me to be, and by a Yankee is properly under¬ 
stood one of the boys of New-England; the type 
of “ go-ahead America”—of Young America. 
He is a young man—it is all the same if he is 
old—w-ho makes his own way in the world in 
full reliance on his own power, stops at nothing, 
turns his back on nothing, finds nothing impos¬ 
sible, goes through every thing, and comes out 
of every thing, always the same. If he falls, he 
immediately gets up again, and says,“ No mat¬ 
ter!” If he is unsuccessful, he says, “Try 
again!” “Go-a-head!” and never stops till he 
succeeds. Nay, he does not stop then. His 
work and will is always to be working, building, 
beginning fresh, or beginning something new— 
always developing, extending himself or his 
country, and somebody has said, with truth, 
that all enjoyments of heaven would not be able 
to keep an American in one place, if he was sure 
of finding another still further west, for then he 
must be off to cultivate and to build. It is the 
Viking spirit again ; not the old Pagan however, 
but the Christian, which does not conquer to 
destroy, but to ennoble. And he does not do it 
with difficulty and with sighs, but cheerfully, 
and with good courage. He can sing “Yankee 
Doodle,” even in his mishaps; for if it will not 
go this way, then it wiil go that. He is at home 
on the earth, and can turn every thing to his 
own account. He has, before he reaches middle 
life, been a schoolmaster, farmer, lawyer, soldier, 
author, statesman—-has tried every kind of pro¬ 
fession, and had been at home in them all ; and 
besides all this, he has travelled over half, or 
over the whole of the world. Wherever he 
comes on the face of the earth, or in whatever 
circumstances, he is sustained by a two-fold con- 
ciousness which makes him strong and tranquil; 
that is to say, he is a man that can rely upon 
himself; and that he is the citizen of a great 
nation, destined to be the greatest upon the 
face of the earth. 
Marluk 
Remarks. —Since the arrival of the steamer 
Arctic, Flour has given way 6£ to 12-J cents per 
bbl. Wheat and Indian Corn from 2 to 3 cents 
per bushel. Rye has slightly advanced, while 
Barley and Oats remain firm at former prices. 
Provisions remain unchanged. 
Cotton, and Southern products are about the 
same as per our last. 
Money is more in demand at 9 to 15 per cent, 
on all bills outside the Banks. Stocks are 
heavy. Large shipments of specie are still 
going abroad, and are likely to continue to do 
so for some time. Our advice to every one is, to 
be very cautious in contracting new indebted¬ 
ness. -- 
REVIEW OF THE BRITISH CORN TRADE. 
By the steamer Arctic, which arrived here on 
the 12th inst, we have received the two latest 
numbers of the Nark Lane Express, those of 
the 21st and 28th ult. We have heretofore 
cautioned our readers that the weekly articles 
from this paper, entitled “Review of the Corn 
Trade," which we usually copy into our jour¬ 
nal, were written, undoubtedly, too much under 
the influence of a fear of great deficiency in the 
crops, and consequently a great rise in the mar¬ 
kets of Great Britain and on the Continent. 
The shortness of the crops there is undoubted ; 
but we are yet to be convinced that it is as 
great as the Mark Lane Express would make 
them out; and that prices would not conse- 
