40 
JAN 5 
Peerless do well, but are surpassed by Dun- 
more both as to beauty and regularity of 
shape, as well as productiveness. Indeed 
there were very few of Duntnore that were 
not suitable for shipping. This variety did 
best for me in every respect, including- beep¬ 
ing qualities, in three sections I have named, 
and over a series of years. I have now fixed 
on the Beauty of Hebron for early, and the 
White Elephant and Dunmore for late, aud 
shall rely on them for my main crops. My 
experience with fertilizers showed Baker’s 
potato fertilizer to svirpass stable manure, 
and stable manure to surpass cow-pen ma¬ 
nure, the latter for potatoes being worthless, 
producing enormous vines with few and in¬ 
ferior tubers. I found that cotton-seed 
meal, ground bone and 40 per cent, of actual 
potash mixed so as to give 11 per cent, of pot¬ 
ash. oK per cent, of phosphoric acid and 3% 
percent, of ammonia equaled Baker’s or any 
other fertilizer. “gray-beard.” 
Americus, Ga, 
Cilfxunj. 
ELEVATE BY EDUCATING THE 
MASSES. 
The safety of the State is iu the education 
of the masses. Oncecut society into an educa¬ 
ted and an ignorant class aud you destroy that 
community of feeling and intelligence neces¬ 
sary as the eerneut of social prosperity aud 
peace. Better sacrifice somewhat of the higher 
education of the rich class, that there may be 
more time aud money spent on the poor. 
There is great danger if these classes, widely 
separated by wealth, have the gulf made 
more wide and fixed by education. The dis¬ 
turbances in Hayti and her sister State, as 
also in some of the South American republics, 
have arisen from the illiteracy of the many 
and the high standard of education and 
refinement among the few. The sons of the 
rich go to Europe for education and imbibe 
liberal ideas. They returu full of uoble pur¬ 
poses for raising their countries from their 
degradation. They plunge into politics in¬ 
stead of devoting themselves to agriculture, 
manufacturing, mining, or engineering. It 
thus happens that there are too many poli¬ 
ticians struggling for the mustery over u mass 
of men ignorant aud childishly impulsive, as 
the negroes are. Conflicts are sure to arise; 
for the temper of these tropical races is hot, 
and the strifes are therefore fierce. 
The educated half-caste, who was so gentle 
in Europe, recovers his native sa\ agerv when 
fighting men of his own race. He even tukes 
patriotic pride iu butchering the race who 
seem to him to keep his country in bondage. 
Every civil war in Hayti hascaused the death 
of hundreds of young, liigli-spirited men who 
had in them almost all the qualities necessary 
to good citizens and who elsewhere might 
have come to the front in any calling or pro¬ 
fession. 
W a at has been true in these uufortimate 
States may easily happen in our Southern 
States, where illiteracy among the masses is 
the rule. The Government is awaking to this 
evil and danger not a moment too soon. But 
it is uot yet more than half awake to the needs 
of the hour. The reform cry for the South 
should be, Educate the people. 
-+- 
W hat shall our boys do when they become 
men ? If farming, horticulture or gardening 
is not suited to their taste or talents, why not 
turn their attention to electrical engineering? 
We have too many doctors, lawyers and min¬ 
isters, aud the great need aud cry here is 
technical education. We especially need 
trained, practical electricians. The enormous 
extension of the telegraph, telephone, electric 
light, electric railways. Are alarm telegraphs, 
etc., makes demand for electrical engineers, 
and offers to skilled and successful ones large 
fortunes. 
In certain kinds of reasoning, the facts are 
made cumulative. A great many of them are 
arrayed, and the strongest ones put where 
they will do the most service. This seems to 
be the methods also of scandal mongers and 
vituperators. They throw a great deal of 
mad, sure that some will stick. 
A novkt. b 3 ‘ E. P. Roe. the well known 
novelist and horticulturist, began in the De 
cember number of Harper's Magazine, and 
will appear serially. It is entitled “ Nature’s 
Serial Story,' - and is a romance of the country 
home with pictures of farm and country life 
by Gibson and Dielman. 
Some modest person in New South Wales 
has written to an English Shabspeare Society 
that for £30,0W he will levenl the trueautlior- 
ship of Sliakspeare s plays. 
for IVomett. 
CONDUCTED BY MISS RAY CLARK. 
GO STEADILY ON. 
And does the way seem dark? 
No matter, for light will surely dawn 
More bright because ol all the darkness gone. 
Aud safe nud strong, thy bark 
Will stem the shining wave. 
Does trouble weight the sorrowing soul? 
More blest will seem the longed-for goal 
That waits beyond the grave. j 
Does hope In ruins lie 
Across your path where duty leads your feet? 
<jo on. and know that all will be complete 
Where hope ran never die. 
Misjudged? No matter. He 
Who knows the yearnings of the human heart 
Knows Hint death hi life is not a part 
Of bis created destiny. 
Then do not fall. 
Go on and make the most of all that's given; 
The wall of doubt and sorrow will be riven 
Beyond the veil. 
EVA AMES, 
SKETCHES OF GERMAN LIFE. 
BERTHA A. ZEDI WINKLER. 
COURTSHIP. 
Everywhere and always Germany’s peas¬ 
ants offer the best opportunity for that 
blending of romance and reality which to 
those not immediately under its influence is 
at once a source of study and a cause for 
smiles. R emoved with the tide of civilization 
from the barbaric practices of buying or 
stealing their brides, poverty and its neces¬ 
sary concomitants of tenacious harshness, 
still chains the weaker with some of the rude 
customs of their ancestors. The luxury and 
polish of manners introduced with the return 
of the Crusaders seeming only to have af¬ 
fected the dwellers of castlesand cities, threw 
the peasantry into a deeper shade by their 
brilliancy, which to this day is the great dis- 
tinguisher of caste. So, when we write of 
courtship it is to be distinctly understood as 
peasant’s courtship, the love-making between 
men and women associated through no ro¬ 
mantic tournament, or fancy-weaving ball¬ 
room music where powder hides freckles and 
culture veils vice, and the host’s thousand 
geniis of entertainment ussist Cupid’s work, 
but thrown together by the ungloved hands 
of toil iu the most prosaic situations. 
The most discouraging feature of these 
courtships lies iu the fact that while a woman 
has none of a man’s advantage in boldly 
avowing her affection aud pursuing the object 
of it. she is generally expected to bear an 
equal share of the expenditures attending 
such occasions. The woman who cauuot 
treat her escort as often as he treats her is a 
superfluity, unless extraordinary beauty is 
her ticket for entertainment. If, at a dance, 
the music is furnished by the lads, the refresh¬ 
ments are provided by the lassies, who gen¬ 
erally come out shortest in the bargain, for 
denial is as foreign to a peasant’s appetite as 
aesthetics to his tastes. Love is fostered less 
by quality than quantity. Traits of charac¬ 
ter aDd congeniality are considered when 
capacity for work and endurnuce have tipped 
the scales. Sentiment aud emotion, though a 
powerful lever of the German nutnro, are in¬ 
congruously mingled with the most, practical 
concerns of life. The man who would com¬ 
mit suicide because his love was jilted, as 
readily turns into the worst tyrant if the ob¬ 
ject of his adoration should eventually prove 
more a thing of beauty and goodness than a 
swift hand in the kitchen and a strong one 
in the field. And if our German sisters were 
more wise than devoted, they would let such 
desperate lovers espouse the mermaids. But 
they assist in the courtship as heartily as they 
do in the work of providing. Their common 
and greatest boa.st of matrimonial advantage 
is buxom strength. The daugbterof a mother 
who has reared a dozen children and helped 
to cultivate twice as many acres, points with 
pride to her antecedents. And girls hired for 
t he same work as meq are saucily conscious 
of thoir superior matrimonial value. When 
bpr hard earned hreutzers ring upon the en¬ 
tertainment-board it js at once an invitation 
and m challenge for candidates to come forth 
and l*e out talked, out-sung aud out-treated 
by her, or the successful rival who can best 
stand the dram of purse and wit. 
Much ns Mo* customs of different localities 
vary in particulars, it is the common purpose 
of all to exhibit and encourage utility, cspei-i. 
ally in women In all their sports prizes are 
obtained by the liest runuers. the best rh tun¬ 
ers, the best burden-bearers, 1 he beat cljtubers, 
in fact the best, exhibitor of strength for 
everything but beating their better half, 
and here the other side carries off the pre¬ 
mium in the shape of submissive wives, and 
uures raining laws. A picture which we have 
seen in a recent German magazine of women 
enjoying the annual sport of wheeling their 
lovers and prospective husbands in barrows 
on a race-course, illustrates the rude barbari¬ 
ties to which the German mind still clings iu 
the very center of culture and civilization. 
The publication comments upon it in a sport¬ 
ive congratulatory, and generously (!) prom¬ 
ises the foremost of the fair racers her living 
burden as the prize of winuing Similar ex¬ 
amples of husband-winning customs might be 
cited among the poorer classes of Europe, 
showing the ill effect of poverty with ignor¬ 
ance and conservatism. Everywhere is seen 
that same selfish prerogative of the stronger 
over the weaker. Thus, for instance, the 
courtship of Winter evenings is carried on 
while the girl industriously spins and the 
suitor industriously smokes. No thought is 
given to the fact that she has worked as hard 
as he during the day, and could enjoy her 
evening's rest iu proportion. Spinning is a 
pastime no more than trimming willows, or 
carting flax, their common work during the 
day. And the fact that he can smoke away 
composedly the produce of one kind of labor, 
while she spins another into lasting fabric 
speaks conclusively for our opinion that man’s 
prerogatives forge a nation’s fetters. 
The pleasant aud romantic part of their 
courtship are the Sunday evening promenades 
on the highway leading under shady fruit, 
trees, which line both sides of the road, to 
neighboring towns or villages. That being 
the only time in which a woman may con¬ 
scientiously do nothing, and a man can do no 
less, presents the first enjoyable picture in its 
equality of situation and pleasure. An idea 
of what would be the life of our emotional, 
imaginative Germans untrammcled by the 
necessities of poverty, and its frost like nip¬ 
ping of every impulse towards development, 
maybe obtained in these Summer evening 
idyls. Between five and six the road is cov¬ 
ered with young people exclusively, and the 
air is filled with song. Arm in ana, forming 
lines across the entire width of the road, some 
pass and repass; others, whoso friends are in 
the neighboring village, extend their walk 
till they mecteach other. Wonderfully sweet, 
and free from all isolation or stolen interviews, 
is their intercourse iu the early part of the 
evening. Everybody seems o very body elso’s 
lover. An atmosphere of purity, peace and 
joy hovers over the face of nature and her 
happy children. Everything wears i:s festal 
robe, aud as chorus after chorus surges from 
hundreds of lusty throats, its echo seem- to 
come back yvith the pleading refrain: 
••Go not. knppy <lay. 
From the shining acids.” 
But the sun has sent his last smile over the 
ridge of hills, and evening bells announce the 
solemn approach of night. Songs are hushed, 
interlaced arms separate, aud there is a gen¬ 
eral scattering into couples wending their 
way—homeward? Not yet. Iu the gloaming, 
loving yvhispers and stolen kisses are so de¬ 
lightful. And there are seats under shade- 
trees, hulf-ruined chapels, once the shrines of 
patron saints, which afford an inviting re¬ 
treat for the promenaders. While the gentle 
warning of the curfew deserts the highway 
and spreads the hush of evening prayer over 
all, the mellow moonlight peeps through the 
branches upon loving couples. The romance 
of a peasant s courtship begins. Toil and 
poverty aud selfishness are forgotten for the 
time Beauty reigns! The heart revels in de¬ 
lightful emotions; and the rustling of the 
foliage overhead breathes the lovers’ prayer: 
"Go not, happy day, 
Till the maiden yields.” 
HOME COMFORT. 
Upon the wife and mother depend much of 
the comfort and happiness of home, for the 
imnates of a home, with an untidy house¬ 
keeper or an indifferent cook for its mistress^ 
can be neither comfortable nor happy. The 
peace and harmony of life a re made or marred 
by what some people would call the trivial 
things of life. But are they trivial? Is it a 
trivial thing when a tiihd, wearied by the toil 
of the day, returns at night to a cheerful, 
well-kept home, where the tastefully-arrayed 
dinner or supper table, with ita inviting dis 
play of well-cooked food, awaits him? 
No, it is not trivial to him, for his health 
and comfort depond in a great measure upon 
his home. How important, then, that the 
daughters of our land should be well trained 
in the useful arts of cooking and of house¬ 
keeping, forth® mistress of a home needs all 
the skill and knowledge that cun be obtained 
to render her home attractive to her loved 
ones. 11 with the qualities of a good house 
keeper she unites the equally desirable quali 
fication of a good homo keeper, then indeed is 
the family that looks to her as it® mistress 
doubly blessed. There is no necessity of a 
woman neglecting the cultivation of her mind 
in order to be a good houskeeper. Some of 
the most intelligent and cultured ladies of my 
acquaintance have been the best housekeepers, 
and some of the poorest housekeepers it has 
ever been my lot to meet have been the most 
ignorant aud the least cultivated. Not long 
since 1 heard a farmer’s daughter remark: 
•‘Well, I don't know how to cook, aud I'm very 
sure I don’t care to learn." That her mother 
was greatly to lie Warned for her daughter’s 
contempt of housework I have no doubt; but 
the fact that her father in his old age was toil¬ 
ing like a slave from morning until night to 
secure his wife and daughter the luxuries 
which they demanded, or that, her father’s 
meals were poorly cooked aud served, was a 
matter of small consequence so loug assbe could 
live a life of indolent ease I kuow that the 
routine of work in the kitchen is not always 
delightful, but to those daughters who brave¬ 
ly and nobly strive to render home pleasant 
often under discouragement, I would say, as 
did one of our writers a short time ago: “ Be 
the queenly mistress of toil, not its shrinking 
slave." Strive to have method aud arrange 
your work so it will not crush you by its 
weight, aud you will rise above its anxieties 
and cares. Think noble thoughts, read use¬ 
ful books, and at the same time do 
your work with au earnest aim, and your 
household tasks will soon become a plea¬ 
sure. Aud to those girls who see no beauty in 
the daily work of home, who, like the 
girl we have just cited, “don’t care 
to learn," we would ask: Would you 
not call a man who scorned all useful labor 
while his family were suffei'ing for the nec¬ 
essaries of life, both cruel and heartless? 
Would you not be the first to denounce him? 
How much condemnation does a girl deserve 
who enters a home as its mistress, totally ig- 
uorautof her duties? Do you say, “House¬ 
keeping will come to yon easily enough. You 
can easily manage that!” Ah! there is 
where you make a grievous mistake. House¬ 
keeping is an art that needs to be well learned 
and skillfully practiced. Every man, when 
be looks forward to a home of his own, has, 
in his vision, a tidily kept, comfortable home; 
not an untidy', cheerless house, and he has a 
right to demaud that the means he provides 
shall be judiciously uud wisely used, that bis 
home shall be well kept and cheerful, that 
the food he provides shall be well cooked and 
tastefully served. He will expect all this, 
and as you enter a home of your own to per¬ 
form its duties, well will it be for 3 -ou if, 
like the woman spoken of in Scripture, it can 
be said, “She looketh well to the ways of her 
household, and eateth not the bread of idle¬ 
ness,” MAY VIOLET. 
Clara Louise Kellogg has been giving 
concerts for the purpose of wiping out the 
mortgage on the home of the late singer, 
Maria Litta, where her invalid mother still 
lives. 
Domestic Cconomi} 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY MAPLE. 
A FARMER’S DAUGHTER’S DOMESTIC 
REVERIE.—NO. 1. 
CHARITY SWEETHEART. 
Jan. 2d.—And so we are fairly launched 
into the new year and able to draw a long 
breath, lthasbeenso tiresome all through 
December that 1 can hardly' lookback with¬ 
out a shudder. It is not much wonder if far¬ 
mers’ daughters are thought coarse and rude, 
for our surroundings are enough to banish 
any native refinement. The days are so 
short, the roads sy muddy', theuights so dark, 
that one might as well bo an Esquimaux as 
anything else. We do Dot even hear 
"The stir of the great Babel," for we are 
shutout. In the cities the great masters of 
art come aud go: the grand prima-donnas 
delight thi>eurs that, can listen, and all we 
can do is to read and envy afar off. Don’t 
tell me you would prefer to be a dais 3 ’. 
I kuow better. What is the fate of a daisy 
