1870.] 
385 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
TEE E©HJ§EM©m 
(For other Household Items , see “ Basket ” pages .) 
Household Ornaments—Grass Bouquets. 
The introduction of a number of annual flowers, 
which, when dry, retain their form and color, has 
made wiuter bouquets very popular. These ever¬ 
lasting flowers, as they are called, when carefully 
dried and made up with skill, form pleasing orna¬ 
ments for the household ; but at their best they are 
not, to our taste, so desirable as bouquets of dried 
grasses. Mauy of the grass bouquets that we see 
arc failures, for the reason that the maker of them 
tried to crowd too much into them. A collection 
of the rarest and most elegant grasses, if tied into 
a bunch and crowded into a heavy vase, will fail 
to be pleasing. The beauty of grasses depends 
upon their ease and freedom from restraint. Some 
color the grasses or incrust them with alum erys- 
A BOUQUET OF DRIED GRASSES AND FERNS. 
tals, processes which we do not think add to their 
beauty, however much it may to their showiness. 
Seeds of several kinds of “ ornamental ” grasses 
are to be had of the seedsmen, but few of these pro¬ 
duce any thing more beautiful than may be found 
growing in the wild state. There are numerous 
wild grasses which are suitable to use in bouquets, 
but as they as a general thing have no common 
names, it is not worth while to enumerate them 
by their botanical ones. The best way is to collect 
whatever grasses seem suitable that we meet with 
in our rambles, tie them in small parcels and dry 
them in the shade in a place free from dust. Some 
berries of the Wax-work ( Celastrus), and ferns dried 
between paper, or in a large book, will be useful 
to combine with the grasses. For a grass bouquet 
the great trouble is to find a suitable vase or re¬ 
ceptacle. Those sold as flower vases are altogether 
too heavy in style to correspond with the airiness 
of the grasses they are to hold. Last year, in June, 
we figured a stand for cut flowers; something of 
this kind is most suitable for an ornament of dry 
grasses. As no water is needed, some such a stand 
could be very easily contrived. A glass tube or 
solid rod of glass, half an inch or a little more 
in diameter, and about two feet long, may be pro¬ 
cured of the druggists or instrument makers. This 
is to be fitted into a round block of wood, heavy 
enough to answer for a firm base, and at Us top 
furnished with a funnel or trumpet-shaped recep¬ 
tacle to hold the stems of the grasses. This recep¬ 
tacle may be covered with paper of some neutral 
tint, or may have mosses and lichens gummed upon 
it. For the pleasing arrangement of the grasses in 
such a stand as this no dPrections can be given; 
each individual can display her taste in the matter. 
The aim should be to avoid all appearance of crowd¬ 
ing, and allow each kind of grass to show its nat¬ 
ural habit. The wooden base of the stand can be 
concealed by the dried fern-leaves, and cones, ber¬ 
ries, and nuts may be introduced. Those who are 
fortunate enough to find the delicate Climbing Fern 
can add much to the beauty of such an ornament 
by twining one of its stems around the glass rod. 
We give an illustration of an ornament of grasses 
arrauged in the manner we have suggested. 
Mending and Making Over. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Young girls often find a great deal of fascination 
in their crocheting and other fancy work, but look 
with horror upon the mending basket. But when 
they once learn to patch and darn nicely , they can 
find pleasure in such work, too. There is scope 
for a good deal of artistic talent in mending old 
clothes. For instance, if both knees of a pair of 
trowsers have grown ragged, put on, if possible, 
large patches of equal size, with corners rounded, 
and if of different stuff from the garment, of as 
harmonious color as you can find, making your 
stitches small and even; and I am sure both wearer 
and mender ought to find a certain gratification of 
taste in those patches. And so with a neatly ex¬ 
ecuted patch or darn on any garment. It is worth 
while to learn to patch and darn well; but not worth 
while to spend much time mending old, coarse, 
every-day garments that will last but a short time 
after they once come to mending. A strong patch 
quickly sewed on with coarse thread is best in such 
cases; but I am often surprised to see how long 
a garment may be kept in use by a little patching— 
the “stitch in time,”—after it seems just about 
ready to throw by. 
Stocking darning can be done more easily and 
smoothly by slipping a small, round or egg-shaped 
gourd, or a rubber ball, inside the toe or heel you 
arc mending. Let your yarn start far enough back 
from the actual hole, to run the thin place sur¬ 
rounding it, at the same time that you fill up the 
hole. In crossing the threads weave them in even¬ 
ly, like the dear old splint bottoms of our grand¬ 
mothers’ chairs—running your needle over one 
thread, then under one, alternating with the rows. 
Long cotton and merino stockings maj r be cut over 
of the same size, but with shorter legs, or of small¬ 
er size. Some women make all the stockings of 
the youngest members of their families in this way 
—and it must be confessed that they are apt to 
make the ankles too loose and bagging, but this is 
not necessary. Men’s boots sometimes wear large 
holes in their socks when almost new, and in such 
cases good patches can be knit in, cutting out the 
hole square or oblong, taking up the stitches, and 
knitting on a patch as large as the hole. This may 
be darned down on the other three sides. New 
heels are often knit into old stockings by careful 
house-keepers. It is well to line the heels of men’s 
coarse socks with strong drilling or denim. 
A convenient darning bag is made in the form of 
an apron, with three or four deep pockets across 
the bottom. If brown linen or gingham is used, 
the apron maybe cut off eight or tun inches longer 
than the desired length, and this extra length 
turned up on the apron to make the pockets, being 
stitched securely between the different compart¬ 
ments. There should be a large pocket for the 
ragged stockings of each week; a pocket for dif¬ 
ferent kinds of darning yarn, including good Shet¬ 
land wool for nice merino stockings, and nun’s 
cotton or floss, for fine cotton ones ; also a pocket 
for pieces of old stockings, and cloth suitable for 
linings. 
Every spring and fall there is some altering over 
to be done, and there is economy in it, to a certain 
extent. It does not pay to make over fabrics that 
are so tender with age that they will begin to crack 
and fall to pieces almost as soon as you have finished 
repairing them. But it does often pay to turn 
skirts of dresses upside down, or wrong side out, 
or front for back. Sheets that have grown thin in 
the middle will often last much longer than other¬ 
wise, if ripped open and sewed together on the 
other edges ; and it is worth while to do this if you 
have a sewing machine, or little girls to do the 
over sewing. 
Just here a word about sewing machines. They 
will not run themselves. So if you are overbur¬ 
dened with care and work, don’t fancy that a sew¬ 
ing machine is going to relieve you. Better put out 
your sewing to some poor woman who has bought 
a machine, hoping to earn her living by it. I 
know a seamstress in a large town, who says she 
has more sewing brought to her from families 
where sewing machines are owned, than from fam¬ 
ilies that are destitute of them. A sewing machine 
needs frequent use to keep it in the best order. 
Some mending may be saved by making aprons 
for small children lo button on the shoulders, so 
that they can be worn with either side in front. 
Leave the_ shoulders open a few inches down into 
the sleeves, for ease in putting the garment on and 
off. Children’s drawers are best to be cut alike iu 
front and back, the knees can be worn so much 
longer without mending. A great deal too much 
altering is done just to keep up with the changing 
fashions ; but it is simply impossible for any woman 
of small means to keep up with fashion comfortabljn 
Thousands of them are all the time trying it, how¬ 
ever. ^AVe choose between “two masters” daily, 
though not always intelligently. In the effort to 
keep up with the times in outward adorning, wo 
fall behind the times in mental culture. The cares 
of dress are cares as really as any others, and they 
write as deep wrinkles on our faces, but such 
wrinkles do not beautify old age like the liues 
traced by thought and affection. For the sake ot 
beaut 3 r alone, if for no other reason, it is best to 
choose simple styles of dress, and to venture t« 
be old-fashioned sometimes, and save time and 
thought for other objects. 
--- » O m -►-«**■- 
Water in the House. 
The best plan for having a supply of water in tlio 
house, is to have a tank, which was full}’ described iu 
May last, on page 108. There are cases, however, 
where this is not practicable, and some other expe¬ 
dient must be resorted to. AVe gave in the House¬ 
hold Department in May, an account of the manner 
in which “ AA r ” brought water into the house. This 
gave hints to “ M. R.,” who says : “ Not altogether 
liking the idea of a barrel overhead iu the bath¬ 
room, from its liability to leak, and on account 
of the smallness of the room, I carried into effect 
the following plan: Our house is built of stone, 
with an offset caused by one part extending 10 feet 
further south than the other, thus forming an 
angle; there is a piazza in this offset, and in this 
angle, about 3 feet above the roof of the piazza, and 
of course outside of our bath-room, I placed a hogs¬ 
head (first bound with iron hoops, well cleansed 
and painted) on boards laid on three strong joists. 
These joists rest on white oak scantling and are 
secured to each wall by having heavy irons made 
of worn wagon tire driven into the wall between the 
stones, four under each piece, thus making it per¬ 
fectly safe and free of the roof. The water is car¬ 
ried into the hogshead by means of a short con¬ 
ductor, attached to the main spout at the comer of 
the roof of the house. A notch about 4 inches 
wide is cut in the top of the hogshead on the side 
from the wall, and has a piece of bent tin tacked in 
it, which projects far enough to allow the water to 
run out clear of the sides into another short spout 
to the one along the edge of the piazza, thence to the 
cistern under the kitchen; thus it will be seen that 
during every rain the supply in the hogshead is 
kept up without watching or waste. The water is 
drawn in the bath-room through a spigot soldered 
in one end of a % iu. lead pipe, running straight 
through the wall and into the hogshead 3 inches 
from the bottom. The bath-tub stands with one 
end under the spigot, the wastewater being carried 
off through another lead pipe 1)4 inches in diame¬ 
ter, running from the bottom of the tub through the 
floor in the corner of the room, and through the 
