January, 1859. 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
35 
THE NEW TEAR—SWEEPING CLEAN. 
Thank you, my girls, for your kind wishes. It makes 
the beginning of my year very happy to have you around 
me again. I’m sure I wish you many a happy New Year. 
Well, well, how time flies—I can scarcely believe that 
another whole year has gone. It seems to me more like 
a month. Time passes very rapidly with old people. 
When I was a little girl a month seemed very, very long, 
and a year, I thought, would never come to an end—for I 
used to look forward to my Christmas and New-Year 
holidays as you do now, and that made me impatient fot 
the time to pass. Sometimes my father told me about 
things that happened ten years before, and I thought he 
must be very old to remember so far back. But ten years 
do not seem very long now. Life is like a journey over a 
hill; we travel slowly till we reach the top. and then we 
go faster and faster to the bottom, like boys riding dowr 
on their sleds. 
Do you wish to grow older • I did when I was young. 
I wanted to be grown up, and sometimes when I laydown 
at night I wished I might wake up in the morning and find 
myself a woman. But I found the time was short enough 
to learn all I ought to know, when I was ebliged to do for 
myself, instead of having almost everything done for me. 
Why, there were a hundred necessary things I did not 
know anything about when I went to housekeeping, and 
so I made mistakes, and many a crying spell I had over 
my work. 
Sometimes I’m afraid the folks now-a-days are spoiling 
their girls. They keep them studying all the time about 
everything on the earth and above the earth, filling their 
heads full of book learning, teaching them to play on the 
piano, and to make worsted-work, and wax-work, and 
leather-work, and all kinds of work except hous work, 
and they call this education. Wax-work wont make good 
preserves, and I don’t believe one of you would eat a 
leather-work pie. I've tasted pies sometimes that seemed 
tough enough for leather. 
And how some of the poor girls look when they have 
“finished,” as they call it. They are justabout finished in¬ 
deed. If they had taken lessons in sweeping and dusting, 
and washing and ironing, as well as in books and fancy- 
work, they might have been healthy and happy. I don’t 
mean to run down a good education—I only want it 
should be really good. Tire body should be educated as 
well as the mind. There’s nothing like housework to 
brace up the strength. And every girl ought to know how 
to do it, so that she may see that it is well done, even il 
she is rich enough to keep ever so many servants. 
SWEEPING AND DUSTING. 
Every body feels, or ought to feel, on New-Year’s, like 
making a clean sweep, and getting everything to rights. I 
have noticed that people who keep their houses neat and 
tidy, are more apt to keep themselves right. 
Let me tell you how to sweep and dust, for who does 
not like to see a neat room ? It is easy, but it requires 
care and practice to do it well A thoughtless girl may 
send the dust flying about every way into the air, to come 
down again after she has finished chasing it with the 
broom, leaving the room about as unclean as before. 
First, shut the doors and windows if it be windy, for 
the wind Geems to love to scatter the dust about. If there 
is nice furniture in the room, cover it with sheets, or with 
newspapers. Then take moist tea leaves and sprinkle 
plenty of them over the floor; they 
will catch the dust. Sweep first 
under the beds, tables, sofas, etc. 
A clean damp flannel mop is the 
best thing to use in such places. 
Of course it should be well wash¬ 
ed out after using it. Where the 
broom is used, be careful not to 
raise it hastily, or high, as that 
would drive the, dust upward. 
Quietly and gently roll the leaves 
and dust together into one place, 
where they may be taken up to¬ 
gether into the dust-pan, or if you 
have not a dust-pan, lay a paper 
flat on the floor, and sweep the 
leaves and dust upon it. 
After sweeping always give 
each article of furniture a good 
thorough dusting. Do not flirt the 
dust off with a brush, but wipe it 
off very carefully. For fine furni¬ 
ture, use a piece of soft flannel. 
Oocasionally shake the duster out 
the window, as it becomes filled, 
and always keep your dusting 
cloth very clean, so as not to rub 
the dirt into, instead of away from 
the furniture. 
There, I think that will do for 
a holiday lesson, only don’t for 
get, my dear, girls, to keep the best room you have well 
swept. I mean the room where you keep your thoughts. 
Sweep out all the naughty thoughts, the cross and unkind 
i clings, and then every new year will be a happy one. 
The Editor with his Young Readers. 
(To be read on January 1st, 1859.) 
A “ Happy New-Year,” to you all , Boys and Girls. We 
said two months ago, this would be a very busy season— 
and it is so indeed—such lots of new and old subscribers 
send in their letters to ihe editor when they forward sub¬ 
scriptions that it would take more than all the time and 
room if every letter was answered or printed at once. 
But they are generally good materials and will “ keep,” 
until they can be used. Well, we have let Uncle Frank 
and Grandmother have about all the room—but have saved 
enough to send the above greeting and a word more. As 
we shall try to have this number reach nearly all of you, 
by New-Year’s day, we shall just fancy that you each re¬ 
spond “A Happy New-Year to you sir.” Our greeting 
has to be sent to the printer before Christmas even, but 
it will be fresh a week later. 
Wonder how you’ll spend your Christmas and New- 
Year’s Days. Would you like to know how we shall 
spend ours? Well, on January 1st, 1859, we shall proba¬ 
bly he—at least all the forenoon—in our “Sancium,” at 
189 Water-street, attending to the lots of letters that al¬ 
ways come in just then. But Christmas Day, we shall 
have a “time” with our little folks near home—ournear- 
ly two-hundred Sabbath School Scholars and their teach¬ 
ers. 
“ What are we going to do 1” Why we have now one 
of the prettiest Sunday School rooms you ever saw, fitted 
up for us mainly by one of our subscribers, a New 
York merchant (we wish there were ten thousand 
who could and would do just like him). Ferhaps you’ll 
have a picture of this “model room” sometime. Well, 
the Ladies are trimming that room all up with evergreens. 
Across one end, is to be a long table, with two Christmas 
trees, one each side of the center. On these trees will be 
hung such a lot of Cornucopias—one for each scholar— 
filled with candies ; there will be oranges and other things 
hanging on these trees. On the table, in one place will be 
quite a mountain of cakes, and two or three hills made 
of a barrel of oranges ; and other heaps of candies, of 
various kinds—thirty or forty pounds in all. But the best 
of all will be a great pile of new Books—one for each boy 
and girl belonging to the School, with his or her name in 
it. 
Then on Christmas afternoon, at 21 o’clock, all the 
School will assemble in the Church nearby, with their pa¬ 
rents and friends, and such singing as we shall have, 
“ will be hard to beat.” Some gentlemen will make short 
addresses, and some rewards will be given out; and then 
the parents and all who do not belong to the school will 
be invited to go into the Schoolroom to merely look at 
it. When they have gone we shall go in there with the 
scholars and teachers and-well you can guess w hat 
will follow. Wo’nt we all enjoy ourselves though'. 
Would’nt you like to be there ? We would like to have 
you. [Private —You need not say anything about it, but 
this pre-report is given just to hint to your friends how 
they may sometime get up a “festival” for you if you 
are good children—or how we would have them do once 
a year for those who deserve it.] 
ABOUT THE PROBLEMS. 
We have neither time nor room to say much about these, 
until after New-Year’s. But our Drawer must be emptied 
of the stacks of answers to the “ Dog Problem ” No. 32. 
All the boys and girls whose names a^e given below, have 
written us that they worked it out “ by their own ingenu¬ 
ity.” We asked this because, as we stated last month, it 
is not a new one, audit has therefore been seen by some— 
though, we are sure, not by one in ten of the boys and 
girls. Very few comparatively have the English book 
in which it appeared, or one of these into which it has 
been copied in this country. We have seen some grown 
people laugh very heartily over it since they first saw it in 
the Agriculturist. By the way, two or three misconstrued 
our promise of “ a picture with the names of those who 
worked it out.” We intended to say we would give the 
picture and their names in this paper, and we do so. You 
see how 4 lines added to the dead dogs in fig. 1, set them 
to running in fig. 2. Here are the names of those who 
sent in correct drawings like fig. 2, prior to Dec. 17 • 
E. H. Slatesive, Monmouth Co., N, J. ; Alex. Kirkman, 
and Henry R. Oliver, Kings Co., N. Y. ; B. C. Parke. 
Fig. 2. 
Dauphin Co., Pa.; Stephen H. Miller, Col. Co., Pa. , 
Daniel E. Hervey, N. Y.; Geo. Dinmer, Phila. ; John 
Lane, N. Y.; John Pilkington, Essex Co., N. J.; Charle: 
H. Smith, N. Y. ; Thomas W. Wightman, Somerset Co. 
N. J. ; Walter Milne, Westchester Co.,N. Y. ; Harriets 
Williams. N. Y. ; Isaac H. Mayer, no address ; Thoma’ 
L. Baily, Chester, Co., Pa. ; Markle Smith, Westmore 
land Co., Pa. ; Orlin O. Hard, Oswego Co., N. Y.; Wit 
field Scott Thompson, Salem Co., N. J.; C. B. Kitlredgi 
Hampden Co., Mass.; Franklin Miller, Berks Co., P- 
(with the very pretty addition of a rabbit running befm 
each dog); George Rowband, Kings Co., N. Y. ; W 
M. Dales, Onondaga Co., N. Y. ; Elmirl M. Vocrliie- 
Seneca Co., N. Y.; O. A. Kittredge Mor gmory O’. 
O. ; James R. Sutton, N. Y Thai!- 7 t\' ,1’ P e’ • c 
