Now that the fairs are all over, we 
should hef^in to exchang-e the new ideas 
{gained. Wliat new devices have you 
seen for lig-htening' or quickening’ house¬ 
work, that seem to be really practical 
and fit for service ? Let us hear about 
that handy article you purchased or 
longed to buy. ^ 
WiLi. our readers who jjatronize our 
pattern department please be careful to 
follow instructions in sending for pat¬ 
terns ? It is entirely unnecessary to cut 
out the illustration, the number of the 
pattern is sufficient to designate what is 
wanted. Hut do not oinll to give bust 
measure or size wanted. Many of the 
orders received must be delayed because 
of this carelessness. 
* 
I'liAT is a very good point made by 
Hrudence Primrose that “ discontent and 
unhappiness are but natural instincts 
and yearnings, not so miich wrong in 
themselves as misdirected and misunder¬ 
stood.” Those who have discontented 
sons and daughters, would do well to 
ponder over this thought. A timely and 
serious consideration of the causes of 
discontent will usually siiggesta remedy, 
bring books and brightness into the 
home, and do not deny the college educa¬ 
tion if young hearts are set on it. 
* 
It is far easier to graft a wholesome 
ambition on to the germ of discontent 
than to iiproot it after years of growth. 
Indeed, the latter is almost impossible. 
The fruit of unsatisfied ambition is one 
of two things: when restraint becomes 
unbearable, parental authority will be 
defied and home ties broken ; or with 
the less impetuous, and more patient 
ones, the canker of disappointed hopes 
will consiime all of the sweetness in their 
chci-acter. Neither of these results is 
desirable, and there is no alternative in 
more than one out of a thousand cases. 
Very rarely there is foiind a soul who 
can bear all disappointments and come 
out unscathed. Hut let us not, as parents, 
pre.scribe this most severe di.scipline, the 
disappointment of wholesome ambition. 
^Ve are not able to judge the limits of 
Jiuman endiirance, and in ijroscribing tlie 
ambitions of a young heart, we may 
make ourselves responsible for a ruined 
life. 
SHALL FARMERS EDUCATE THEIR 
DAUGHTERS ? 
AN A)$I.E ARGU.MKNT ON THE AFFIU.M ATI VE. 
Ih the educated dmujhter a better daughter 
ill the home life on the farm f 
HIS was one of several questions re¬ 
cently put to a thoughtful woman 
of 35 : one country born and bred. Her 
answers came promptly, the reply to the 
question quoted above being: “Yes; 
a selfish, unsympathetic girl will be 
quite as undesirable a member of the 
home circle uneducated as educated. 
The discipline of being away from home 
may help to open her eyes to her unlove¬ 
liness. Suppose that after gaining a 
good education, a girl does have to settle 
down to a lonely, monotonous farm life ; 
is she not so much the better prepared 
to make the most of that life ? I 
knew a girl who was called from col¬ 
lege by the death of her mother. She 
took up cheerfully the tasks necessity 
laid upon her. She makes a pleasant 
home for her father, and she has her 
books, her knowledge of the natural 
sciences, and the letters of her friends to 
fill out her life and help her to be con¬ 
tent. You know that discontent and 
unhappiness are but natural instincts 
and yearnings, not so much wrong in 
themselves, as misdirected and misunder¬ 
stood. Cultivate the understanding, and 
you set people on the road toward solv¬ 
ing their own problems and winning the 
good out of their special set of diffi¬ 
culties.” 
“ What is usually the object of the 
education, to prepare the daughter to 
earn her own living, or simply to give 
her a 'finish’ which will make her a par¬ 
lor ornament and add something to the 
stock of family pride ?” 
‘i Hoth. Nearly all country girls in¬ 
tend to make practical use of the educa¬ 
tion after it is secured. If parents are 
proud of a well educated child, it is but 
a common piece of folly. More than one 
mother is proud of a numskull simply 
because he is her son. ” 
Old-Fashioned Nonsense. 
^Vhen reminded of the old-fashioned 
nonsense about doting mothers wearing 
their fingers to the bone, that beruffled 
daughters might strum poor music in the 
parlor, my friend uttered an impatient 
“ Pshaw !” adding, “ I never came across 
one of those mothers outside of a book. 
City and country are not far apart in 
these days. Is it not fashionable now 
for city girls to understand housekeep¬ 
ing, and to be athletic and active ; and 
are country girls 30 years behind the 
age ?” 
“Is not the result satisfactory, or other¬ 
wise, according to the motives which 
prompt the education ?” 
“ Decidedly yes. Nearly everything 
depends upon that.” 
Now, my friend is an ambitious young 
mother, one of those lamentable crea¬ 
tures whose strength must always fall 
short of the demands put upon it. So 
she goes on, not content with spending 
her modest daily allowance of force, but 
constantly filching a little from her 
capital. No serious balancing of accounts 
has yet been exacted of her. It may 
readily be seen that she is inclined to 
give an affirmative answer to the follow¬ 
ing question, which was the last asked : 
“ Do you think the sacrifices often 
made in order to give the daughters of a 
household an education, are usually re¬ 
paid by the results ?” 
“ So far as I can recall instances where 
sacrifices have been made, I doubt if any 
one concerned has ever regretted them. 
In my owm case, no great self-denial 
would have been necessary. 1 might 
have had a thorough education as well 
as not, but it was not thought best to 
spend the money for it. Hut since—Oh! 
You cannot guess how much I wish that 
half the property my father left me had 
been put into the college course I ought 
to have had !” 
My friend remained silent a little, 
then she turned interrogator. 
“ Don’t you think that an education is 
wortli nearly as much to the parents as 
it is to the children ?” she queried. 
“ I’arents gain by every thing that de¬ 
velops and advances their ehildren, do 
they not ? Do not the hard work and 
the sequestered situation of the farm, 
make fresh thought particularly bene¬ 
ficial there ?” prudence pruvirose. 
LACK OF KITCHEN CONVENIENCES. 
UCH is said, and more written, about 
the selfishness of the men folks in 
providing themselves wdth all sorts of 
machinery, whereby the work is more 
easily and quickly done ; while at the 
same time, there is an astonishing lack of 
conveniences, even of the cheapest and 
most ordinary sorts, in the house. If 
there is a sewing machine and an organ, 
that is all that is required by many 
women. And the organ is more for orna¬ 
ment than for use, as it is seldom opened. 
I asked of a w oman who was doing her 
washing with the old pounding barrel 
and tub, why she did not have a good 
washing machine and wringer. 
“Oh, they cost too much, and they 
don't last long ! I’d just as soon use the 
tub and rub-board,” was her reply. 
I asked another what she thought of 
getting a dishwasher. 
“Why, they don’t amount to much. 1 
saw one at the fair, and I thought I’d 
rather have the money it would cost for 
something else.” 
Another was trying to bake with an 
old, broken-down, worn-out stove, and 
wasted food enough in the course of a 
year, nearly or quite to pay for a good 
stove. When asked why she did not 
have a new one, she .said that she wanted 
a range, but they couldn’t afford one yet, 
and she would have a new kitchen built 
on to put it in, as it took up so much 
room. 
Not a few women boil their clothes in 
a di.shpan (it is a wonder they have that), 
because they think they can’t afford a 
boiler. “Tin ones ru.st out so quickly, 
and copper ones are too expensive.” 
Where you find one farmhouse well sup¬ 
plied with good household conveniences, 
you will find ninety-nine without any. 
Farmers’ wives are as stingy to them¬ 
selves in providing conveniences for their 
work as their husbands are generous in 
providing farm tools. And they are not 
all penniless, as the many fancy articles 
shut up in unused parlors testify. Not 
infrequently, the room would appear in 
better taste if two-thirds of the trinkets 
were tossed out of the window. Yet 
these were all paid for from the purse 
that can’t afford a good wa.sher and 
w^ringer, a barrel churn, boiler, or basins 
and dippers. .may .maple. 
FORCING FLOWERS FOR WINTER. 
AST year we expected a Christmas 
gathering of the relatives at our 
old-fashioned farm house, and of course 
were anxious to make the old home as 
beautiful and cozy as possible. Eight or 
nine weeks before Christmas, we dug up 
roots of purple and white lilac, hardy 
hydrangea and some others. These were 
planted in lai'ge tubs, watered with warm 
water, and set close to a stove which is 
kept going night and day. At Christ¬ 
mas, both lilacs were in bloom, one 
carrying 12, the other 14 clusters of 
fiowers, and other clusters which all 
opened later. A hardy hydrangea that 
received much the same treatment, did 
not blossom in time for our celebration, 
but we enjoyed its beauty later. 
The longer I keep fiowers, and the 
more I work with them, the more 1 am 
convinced that almost any plant may be 
forced into bloom at any required time 
by careful treatment. I believe, also,' 
that blossoms can never be had so freely 
as when the knife is freely used, and the 
plants are well stimulated. Most plants, 
so far as my observation goes, are not 
given to dyspepsia, but on the contrary, 
are good feeders, enjoying rich food, and 
repaying the one who supplies it, with 
leaves of great size and flowers in pro¬ 
fusion. Another advantage that always 
follows as a consequence, is that much 
smaller pots can be used, giving more 
room on the window sills, so that speci¬ 
mens do not so forcibly remind us of 
“ puss in boots. ” Achania Malvaviscus 
is one of the old reliables, blooming 
through heat and cold, summer and win¬ 
ter, without apparent regard for the sea¬ 
son. Dust, heat, or, in fact, any of the 
troubles other plants are metaphorically 
turning up their noses at, do not affect 
it. Double petunias are of a coarse 
growth, but their blos.soms are beautiful 
and always to be depended upon if given 
half a chance in any warm corner. 
Some plants are more beautiful if they 
are never allowed to blossom, as the 
foliage geraniums, sunray fuchsia and 
some others. A good plant of Mrs. Pol¬ 
lock, or of Sir Robert Napier, is much 
prettier if it keeps all its vitality for its 
leaves; the blossoms are of no great 
account at the best, but they seem to 
draw largely from the strength of the 
plant. Even .Madam Salleroi, Happy 
Thought, or ^Mountain of Snow, much 
more common kinds, are greatly bene¬ 
fited by picking off all buds on their first 
formation. Carnations are the worst 
plants to deal with that I ever tried to 
manage. After every care that I know 
how to give them, we rarely succeed in 
getting a blossom, and many plants will 
rot off’ first at the toj) of the ground, 
even when we keep them as dry as we 
dare to. Hut they are so lovely we do 
not wish to give up beaten, and shall 
keep on trying until m e find what has 
been the matter ; some simple error no 
doubt, but enough to make the attempt 
a failure. Florence. 
SOME DESIGNS FOR SOFA PILLOWS. 
VERY woman who delights in taste¬ 
ful things, and what woman does 
not, has in her rooms “ pillows here, pil¬ 
lows there, pillows everywhere.” With 
the present rage for pillows, it is safe to 
say that larger numbers than ever before 
will play tlieir part in holiday gifts. 
At a recent fair, several new and novel 
designs were noticed. The cover of one 
was of a handsome, dark bottle-green 
plush. A handsome design was crocheted 
over molds with whipcord tw ist of four 
ditt’erent shades. The four corners were 
each of the same design. The edge was 
finished with a large green cord. Al¬ 
though this may sound very simple, it 
makes a most elegant affair, the peculiar 
twist of the silk giving one of the most 
beautiful effects in mold-crochet work. 
A very delicate cushion was of lavender 
China silk. Tlie upper part was gathered' 
somewhat on each edge, allowing a full¬ 
ness in the center of the cushion. This 
full center was gathered in a sort of 
puff, and around it as if to hold it in 
place, were pansies worked on brown 
linen with Roman floss in the shades of 
purple. Wide lace of the same shade as 
the linen was gathered around the edge, 
the sewing being concealed by a lavender 
cord. 
One of the prettiest fancies was a 
cushion of blue plush. In the center 
was a small square of wash lace, and the 
space between the plush and lace was 
filled with the down of the milkweed. A 
large blue bow of satin ribbon was on 
each corner, and the edges of the lace out¬ 
lined with braided “ nursery” ribbon of 
the same shade as the large bows. 
A cushion cover, which may be sent to 
the laundry, may be made of brown linen 
worked with Roman floss. Have a de¬ 
sign stamped on the linen, which will 
allow the center of the square to be cut 
out. Sew in the center of the cu.shion a 
puff’ of silk a little larger than the open¬ 
ing in the cover, and of the same shade 
as that in which the linen is worked. 
Highest of all in Leavening Power.—Latest U. S. Gov’t Report 
Baking 
Powder 
ABMLUTE1.Y PURE 
