1863.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
277 
Smith thoughtjt would be a fine thing to live in the country. Smith could not get heli-, and as domestic duties began to accumulate and interfere 
with his ease, Smith set his inventive faculties to work, with the above result.—The contrivance is not patented, but is free for the use of all readers of 
the Agriculturist, for whose especial benefit it was sketched and engraved. We can not speak from personal experience of its perfect feasibility. 
Small Leaks in the Household Ship. 
A thousand worm holes, that will each admit 
scarcely a gallon of water during ten hours, will 
much sooner water-log a ship than a large hole 
through which is poured in a gallon a minute. In 
the financial affairs of a family, though the large 
outgoes may be canvassed and avoided, the whole 
income may be dribbled away, and no advance be 
made toward competency, wealth, or position. As 
a rule, the financial success of any family depends 
more upon the economy of the wife, than upon the 
earnings or business income of the husband.—Mrs. 
Haskell, in her recently issued “ Household Ency¬ 
clopedia,” throws together some of the small leaks 
in a household ship, which we copy for a double 
purpose; 1st, to show the men that their wives 
have a multitude of cares, of little details, to look 
after—generally far more items than occur in man’s 
business pursuits; and 2nd, to perhaps in some 
cases indicate to housewives details that they 
may not have thought of before:—“ Much waste is 
experienced in the boiling etc., of meats. Unless 
watched, the cook will throw out the water with¬ 
out letting it cool to take off the fat, or scrape the 
dripping pan into the swill-pail. This grease is 
useful in many ways. It can be bui ned in lamps 
mixed with lard; or, when no pork has been boiled 
with it, made into candles. When pork is boiled 
alone, it will do to fry cakes, if cleansed. Again, 
bits of meat are thrown out which would make 
hashed meat, or hash. The flour is sifted in a 
wasteful manner, or the bread-pan left with dough 
stickiug to it. Pie crust is left and laid by to sour, 
instead of making a few tarts for tea, etc. Cake 
batter is thrown out because but little is left. Cold 
puddings arc considered good for nothing, when 
often they can be steamed for the next day, or, as 
in case of rice, made over in other forms. Veget¬ 
ables are thrown away that would warm for break¬ 
fast nicely. Dish towels are thrown down where 
mice can destroy them. Soap is left in water to 
dissolve, or more used than is necessary. If Bath 
brick, whiting, rotten stone, etc., are used, much is 
wasted uselessly. The scrub brush is left in water, 
pails scorched by the stove, tubs and barrels left in 
the sun to dry and fall apart, chamber pails allowed 
to rust, tins not dried, and iron-ware rusted ; nice 
knives used for cooking in the kitchen, silver 
spoons are used to scrape kettles, or forks to toast 
bread. Rinsing of sweetmeats, and skimmings of 
syrup, which make good vinegar, are thrown out; 
cream is allowed to mould, and spoil; mustard to 
dry iu the pot, and vinegar to corrode the castor ; 
tea, roasted coffee, pepper, and spices, to stand 
open and lose their strength. The molasses jug 
loses the cork, and the flies take possession. Sweet¬ 
meats are opened and forgotten. Vinegar is drawn 
in a basin, and allowed to stand, until both basin 
and vinegar are spoiled. Sugar is spilled from the 
barrel, coffee from the sack, and tea from the chest. 
Different sauces are made too sweet, and both 
sauce and sugar wasted. Dried fruit has not. been 
taken care of in season, and becomes wormy. The 
vinegar on pickles loses strength, orleaks out, and 
the pickles become soft. Potatoes in the cellar 
grow, and the sprouts are not removed until they 
become worthless. Apples decay for want of look¬ 
ing over. Pork spoils for want of salt, and beef 
because the brine wants scalding. Hams become 
tainted, or filled with vermin, for want of the right 
protection. Dried beef becomes so hard it can’t 
be cut. Cheese moulds, and is eaten by mice or 
vermin. Lard is not well tried in the Pall, and be¬ 
comes tainted. Butter spoils for want of being 
well made at first. Bones are burned that will 
make soup. Ashes are thrown out carelessly, en¬ 
dangering the premises, and being wasted. Serv¬ 
ants leave a light and fire burning iu the kitchen, 
when they are out all the evening. Clothes are 
whipped to pieces in the wind; fine cambrics rub¬ 
bed on the board, and laces torn in starching. 
Brooms are never hung up, and soon are spoiled. 
Carpets are swept with stubs, hardly fit to scrub 
the kitchen, and good new brooms used for scrub¬ 
bing. Towels are used iu place of holders, and 
good sheets to iron on, taking a fresh one every 
week, thus scorching nearly all in the house. 
Fluid, if used, is left uncorked, endangering the 
house, and wasting the alcohol. Caps are left from 
lamps, rendering the fluid worthless by evaporation. 
Table linen is thrown carelessly down and is eaten 
by mice, or put away damp and is mildewed ; or 
the fruit stains are forgotten, and the staius washed 
in. Table-cloths and napkins used as dish wipers ; 
mats forgotten to be put under hot dishes ; teapots 
melted by the stove; water forgotten in pitchers, 
and allowed to freeze in winter ; slops for cow and 
pig never saved ; china used to feed cats and dogs 
on ; and iu many other ways, a careless and inex¬ 
perienced housekeeper will waste, without heeding 
the hard-earned wages of her husband ; when she 
- ■ ■ ■ . j —i 
really thinks, because she buys no fine clothes, 
makes the old ones last, and cooks plainly, she is a 
most superior housekeeper.”—The next time an 
unthinking husband is disposed to be severe be¬ 
cause some trifling matter has been neglected, he 
should “ put that in his pipe and smoke it.” 
Tim Bunker on Old Style House-Keeping. 
It was a rainy morning in August, I had five tons 
of hay down, and it was “morally certain,” as Mr. 
Spooner says, when he is putting a thing strong, 
that I shouldn’t have any hay weather, so there 
was nothing to do but set iu the house, and see 
things grow. There is great satisfaction iu that, 
and blessed is that man who has his fields and 
meadows where he can see them from his window. 
I have seen some rather handsome pictures down 
in your city in the Academy, and other places, but 
there are none to compare with the view from my 
dining room window. There lies spread out before 
me, the Horse-pond lot, all nicely mowed, and 
looking as smooth as Mr. Olmstead’s lawns in 
your Central Park that you think so much of; and 
just beyond, a four acre field of corn, in full tassel 
and spindle ; and beyond that, a side hill covered 
with wood and rocks, and a little to the right hand, 
a glimpse of the sea covered with sails. There is 
a pasture dotted with cattle and sheep, that beat 
anything I ever saw on canvass. It don’t cost half 
so much to build a house with the picture gallery 
outside as it does to have it within, and then you 
are never pinched for room, and it costs nothing to 
have your pictures retouched, and the fi ames re¬ 
gilded. It is a source of endless entertainment 
and instruction to study this out-door picture gal¬ 
lery, and rainy days give us the leisure, and a new 
light to see them in. 
Mrs. Bunker had got her cheese in the press, and 
the milk things washed up, and things put to rights 
generally, when I saw her overhauling a bundle of 
old yellow papers that looked as if they were a 
hundred years old. One of them was an old ac¬ 
count book of her grandfather’s, made by doubling 
a sheet of foolscap twice, and sewing it together. 
The thread is stout linen, such as her grandmother 
used to spin on the linen wheel. 
“Now,” says she, “ Timothy I like to look over 
these things and see how differently folks live now, 
from what they used to when my mother was a 
