406 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Written for the American Agriculturist. 
REMINISCENCES OF A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 
BY MINNIE MYRTLE. 
I once knew a lawyer, a man of great wealth, 
great influence, and great pretensions, who had 
a family of many daughters to whom he afforded 
the highest advantages of education, and the 
means for acquiring a great variety of accom¬ 
plishments, and who were indulged in every 
species of fashionable amusement, who were 
yet denied one of th'e most refining influences 
which can be exerted upon youthful minds, 
and one of thegmost- exalting and exhilarating 
pleasures. 
They lived on the skirts of a beautiful country 
village, and their house was more elaborately 
finished, and more elegantly furnished than that 
of any other family in the region. They had 
Brussel’s carpets, China vases, and French cook¬ 
ing; and their dresses were made in the city, 
more than a hundred miles away. But what 
farmer in the land will believe me when I say, 
that there was not a flower to be seen on the 
premises ! They had what they called a garden, 
and such it was, I suppose, in the strict and 
scientific sense of the term. There were in it 
beets, carrots, cabbages, and most of the ordi¬ 
nary kinds of vegetables, arranged without any 
regard to taste, and cultivated without any re¬ 
gard to neatness—a patch of beans here and a 
patch of peas there; with the soil just as the 
plow left it, all in furrows and lumps, covered 
with straw and sticks and brushwood; and not 
even a strip of green sward at the end or side 
for a relief. 
Having been accustomed to whole beds of 
roses, asters, pinks, and peonies, I could hardly 
believe my eyes at the sight of such a garden, 
and ventured to ask, “where were the flowers ?” 
“ Oh,” said this highly educated gentleman, “ of 
what use are flowers. We deal in the useful;” 
and then pointed to his beans and onions as the 
proofs of his superior wisdom and judgment. I 
need say nothing more to describe his character, 
He was polished, but not refined; he knew the 
rules of etiquette, but he had no delicate in¬ 
stincts, which prompted him to study the hap¬ 
piness of those about him. He performed for 
his children what the rules of cultivated society 
required; yet in their home they were very far 
from happy. He had taught his daughters to 
walk, talk, and dance; but he did not practise 
himself, nor teach them to practise true polite¬ 
ness. They were ever ridiculing “country 
people,” with their coarse ways and rude habits, 
yet there were many within the circle of their 
acquaintance who possessed far more true refine¬ 
ment, and a higher appreciation of beauty in the 
moral, social, and physical world. 
But is it true that the men who plow,.sow, 
and reap, and the women who wash, iron, sweep, 
dust, and arrange, must necessarily be uncouth 
in manner and rude in conversation ? No, it is 
not; and it will be a glorious day for this dark 
world of ours, when it is proved to the satisfac¬ 
tion of all, that labor—physical labor—is in no 
sense deteriorating. 
Another day I will ask my readers to go with 
me into one or two farm-houses far away in the 
country, and see those who are familiar with 
every species of toil. 
It is said there are “ gentlemen farmers ” to 
be sure; but they are those who have earned 
their money in some other profession, “ they 
never worked on a farm.” But I will prove 
that there are those who have “worked on a 
farm ” all their lives, who are still “gentlemen,” 
both in the true and the false acceptation of the 
term; and also that there are women who have 
made butter and cheese all their lives, and are 
familiar with all the details of house-keeping, 
who are yet ladies in the highest sense of the 
term. Among the most intelligent and accom- 
.plished ladies I ever met—and I have traveled 
widely through our fair land, and seen them in 
their homes and at their firesides; yes, and at 
their toil—were farmer’s wives. 
I have been in many families in cities, where 
the servants—Irish servants too—more truly 
deserved the appellation of ladies than those 
whom they served. 
There are many in the ranks of wealth and 
fashion who have yet to learn that dress does 
not make a lady ! It has passed into a proverb 
that “ worth makes the man and the want of it 
the fellow;” yet I must still repeat, that there 
are many who possess the sterling qualities which 
give character to the man, who seem to think 
that it would detract from their worth to be 
polite, to dress becomingly, and to practise, at 
all times, the delicate courtesies of life. 
Every farmer and every mechanic who gives 
an example in himself and in his family, in his 
house and in his grounds, that taste and elegance 
may be combined with intellectual and moral 
worth in those who “ earn their bread by the 
sweat of their brows,” and that the beautiful in 
all things may go hand in hand with the useful, 
is a preacher of the highest order, the most ef¬ 
fective lecturer on “human progress,” and he 
is doing thereby more than many, whose voices 
are heard in public, for the elevation of his fel¬ 
low-men. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
While looking over a few numbers of the 
American Agriculturist, given me by a friend, 
I observed a request that ladies would send you 
“ recipes” for cookery. I will contribute to your 
columns one which I have found valuable, and 
which others may like to try, especially now, 
when wheat flour commands so exhorbitant a 
price. 
To Bake Hominy. —Take one pint of hominy, 
and add to it one pint of milk, two pints of wa¬ 
ter and a little salt. Bake it in a deep dish four 
or five hours, and you will have a most delicious 
treat for supper. 
The corn for hominy, or samp, as it is often 
called, should be merely cracked. It loses much 
of its sweetness when ground too fine. No one 
who has not eaten it in both forms, can imagine 
the difference. 
To boil hominy is quite a tedious process, as 
it requires so much stirring to prevent its being 
burnt; but by cooking it in this way all such 
trouble is avoided, and the result is on every 
account more satisfactory. 
Rice can be prepared for tire table in the same 
way. A. II. 
Hazlewood. 
-•««- 
A Tea Cake. —Mrs. S. S. Dungan, in the 
Ohio Farmer, gives the following recipe; but 
the editress thinks a little more butter -would 
make much better cakes: Take one teacup full 
of sugar, one egg, a lump of butter as large as a 
walnut, one teacup of sweet milk, one'pint of 
flour, a teaspoon full of cream tarter, one-half 
spoonful of soda, beaten well together. By 
using sour milk or cream, the cream tarter may 
be dispensed with. 
Haslet Sauce. —Put on the feet and liver of 
the pig, with just enough water to cover them, 
with a little salt. Let them stew slowly ; when 
the feet are tender, take them up, cut them in 
two or three pieces, but do not take out the 
bones; chop the liver, return it and the feet to 
the liquor they were boiled in; set the stew-pan 
over the fire, add pepper, salt, and sweet majo- 
ram to the taste. Roll a piece of butter in flour, 
and stir it to thicken the gravy, add two glasses 
of port wine and serve it hot. Any kind of 
spice may be added. 
Stewed Apple Pudding. —Cover with apples 
pared and cored, to the depth of two inches, a 
deep basin or pan, add. water sufficient to stew 
them. Make a crust as for common biscuit, roll 
to an inch in thickness, cut a hole in the center 
and cover with it the apples. Set the dish on 
the stove or coals to cook, covering closely to 
prevent the escape of steam. Twenty or thirty 
minutes will be sufficient. Serve with sauce 
made of water, butter, and sugar, thickened with 
flour and seasoned with nutmeg. So says Mrs. 
E. P. F. B., in the Michigan Farmer. 
- **-* - 
Washing Made Easy. —Every man on earth 
ought to contribute something for this object— 
not because he ought always to wear clean 
linen—not because he ought to do all in his 
power to lessen the labor of those who make 
said linen clean—not for his own personal com¬ 
fort, or the comfort of his better half, if he hap¬ 
pen not to be only a half of human existence 
himself, but for his personal safety. Because, 
when washing day comes round—and washing 
work is particularly hard—you had better be¬ 
lieve, you who have never had experience, it is 
a little unsafe for you to come within reach of 
soap-suds and wash-boards. If you should ever 
be guilty of such a piece of insanity, just tell the 
opposition you only came into the kitchen out 
of the most benevolent motives in the world; 
merely to tell that the “ crazy folks” in the asy¬ 
lum, at Hartford, Connecticut, mix a gill of al¬ 
cohol with a gallon of soft soap, just as they are 
going to rub it on the clothes, which they then 
soak two or three hours, and then merely rinse 
out in clean water, and all the dirt is out as ef¬ 
fectually as good sense is out of a fellow after 
drinking the same quantity of the “poison 
stuff.” Just tell them that it is the easiest way 
to make washing easy, and get them to try it, 
and you will thereafter have no reason to run 
away on washing day. 
In washing stairs and passages, always use a 
sponge instead of a cloth when washing the 
space between the carpet and wall, and you 
will not soil the edges. Sponge is cheap, and 
this information is cheap, but it is valuable to 
all housekeepers .—The Plough. 
CLIMATE OF SAN FRANCISCO. 
review of toe weather for toe year 1853. 
BY DR. IIENRY GIBBONS. 
The first part of January was cloudy and 
rainy, but after the 11th, the weather was 
mostly clear and charming, only one rain oc¬ 
curring in the last two weeks. The lowest 
temperature was 41, and the highest 62. The 
mean at sunrise was 47-J and at noon 56J. 
The prevailing winds were very light, from 
north and northwest. There were nine days 
entirely clear, and four days entirely cloudy. 
February, for the first three weeks, the 
weather was superb. Up to the 21st there 
were no less than seventeen days entirely clear. 
In the last week there were four rainy days, 
but in the whole month only one day was en¬ 
tirely cloudly. The temperature was delightful, 
the means at sunrise and noon being 48 and 
60. The coldest morning was 42, and the 
warmest noon 67, The prevailing winds were 
