406 
FEB 46 
for Women, 
CONDUCTED BY MISS RAY CLARK. 
A BALTIMORE LETTER. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
In coming hither, I resolved to gratify a 
long time wish for seeing rose culture on a 
large scale, and for this purpose stopped over 
night at West Grove, Pa., and visited the 
rose-growing establishment of Dingee & 
Conard. It is about forty miles from Phila¬ 
delphia, aud the railroad that traverses that 
part of the country makes its way through 
rich farming communities, thrifty and 
neat at the hands of Quakers, past Bayard 
Taylor’s old home at Kennett Square, and on 
through Port Deposit along the Susquehanna, 
where there is “no end” to the huge quarries 
which supply the well known Port Deposit 
stone. 
After tarrying the night in a neat little 
inn at West Grove, where the landlady not 
only cooked the food for the table but looked 
after all the wants of her guests with a zeal 
that is uot often seen in country iuns 1 rode 
for a distance of half a mile, w'bere I fouud 
the rose plantation situated on very high 
ground, and fully exposed to the severity of 
the weather, save a belt of evergreen trees 
closely planted which formed some protection 
ou the north and west sides. Near by were 
the capacious and well kept homes of the pro¬ 
prietors, who I judge grew up in the neigh¬ 
borhood, and developed from the ordinary 
business of nurserymen, hy the demands of 
the times, into being the largest rose-growers 
in the world. No one will be likely to ques¬ 
tion tins, wheu aware of the fact that from 
their sixty glass-roofed rose-houses two mil¬ 
lions of rose plants are annually shipped to 
the four corners of the earth. It was barely 
past seven o'clock in the morning, at the be¬ 
ginning of my visit, but early as was the hour 
I was fortunate enough iu flu ding both Mr. 
C'onar^and the head gardener, an Alsatian 
of nufffced intelligence, on the grounds, 
and kind enough to devote their time 
to my service. One does not realize, at 
first glauce, to what an enormous extent 
the cultivation of roses has been carried, 
chiefly within the past 20 years, and the 
great number of varieties produced almost 
entirely through seedliugs. In the Dingee 
aud Conard houses, 800 varieties are culti¬ 
vated, air hough the number of all known 
varieties reaches 2,000, perbap , In the 
months of August and .September 200 or more 
varieties can be seen iu bloom at one time. 
Since the advent of the rose bug which 
slaughters the Anuual or June roses, the de¬ 
mand for the “ever-blooming” roses, has 
naturally come to be very great, as they are 
not only less afflicted by the bugs than the 
June Roses, but do their best blooming after 
the bug season is over. In Frauce, and par¬ 
ticularly at Lyons, where the finest roses 
originate, the Manetti, or native wild rose, is 
used almost entirely for the stock upon which 
other roses are grafted, especially the new va¬ 
rieties that have been produced from seed, so 
in these West Grove houses one sees great 
numbers of pots in which are growing these 
grafted roses, which have been imported and 
which are here used for cuttiugs, for all the 
rose plants which issue from this establish¬ 
ment, as from most American nurseries, are 
on their own stocks. It is wonderful to see what 
wisps of cuttings take root in the beds of 
white sand, obtained from a quarry near by, 
and the gardener said that it was not at all 
necessary under good conditions to take cut¬ 
tings from wood of the growth of the pre vious 
year—anything with a bud on it would do, 
aud any sand but that from the seashore, which 
is saline, would do. In going through the 
rose houses one quickly sees what a marked 
difference there is in the foliage of different 
varieties of roses, all through the deepening 
aud fading shades of red and green, and a 
striking difference, also, in the habits of 
growth, of the shapes of the spines, and this 
difference often characterizes the roots as 
well. Very few new varieties of roses are pro¬ 
duced in this country, as the seedling business is 
carried on chiefly in England aud Belgium. 
A good many roses produce no seeds, or very 
rarely, and, of course, but one seed out of 
many produces a new variety. Not many 
roses were in bloom at the time of my visit, 
and those were mostly cut for a nosegay for 
me, but later ou, in February, one sees more 
flowers,although no blossoms a re produced for 
the market. Everywhere the utmost cleanli¬ 
ness and neatness prevailed. The tanks or 
basins of warm sifted soil, the thousands of 
small pots in which boys were busily planting 
the rooted cuttings fresh from the sand: in 
deed, everything connected with theestablish- 
ment, seemed a model of good order aud ex 
tieme neatness. The gardener summed up 
$ US es^entjals for successful rose rulturt) jq a * 
few words—good, deep soil—no fertilizer bet¬ 
ter than stable manure—and good drainage; 
for while roses require an abundance of water, 
they also require drainage in proportion. 
Upon arriving in Baltimore, I placed my 
nosegay of roses in high vases that had been 
decorated by the blonde daughter of my host¬ 
ess, whose c'ever fingers have illumiuated 
every room in the house, and whose painted 
roses happily outlive the evanescent 
beauty of the real ones. And the mania 
of household decorations has gone hand 
in hand with that of floral culture. A fail- 
amount of taste, and a little practice soon en¬ 
ables a bright girl to paint tolerable pictures 
on silk and satin, glass, pasteboard, china, or 
whatever is capable of decoration. Aside from 
the decorative art, Baltimore maidens jnst 
now have a mania for learning to play the 
banjo, while the piano is more than ever in a 
fair way of being put iu the background. Bal¬ 
timore is an up and down city, in point of sur¬ 
face, and there is an odd sense of hilarity ex¬ 
perienced in lading in the horse cars, which 
run at break neck speed down the hills, with 
the horses, often four of them, galloping up the 
hills. Of course, now that the Johns Hop¬ 
kins University is located here, and has 
the Pealiody Institute with its library 
of 80,000 volumes for its neighbor, 
Baltimore has become a great center 
for students, aud will yearly become more 
so. The University is by no means as 
liberal as it should be—and in liberality makes 
no approach to Cornell—where the lectures 
are open to everybody: but President Gilman 
of the Johns Hopkins is a broad-minded man, 
who believes iu the higher education of wo¬ 
men, and if the trustees were of his mind, 
women would now be in the University as 
fully admitted students. There is nothing in 
the charter to keep them out, and if the young 
women of Baltimore rise up to their privi¬ 
leges they will eventually secure the great 
gifts of the University for their sex. In going 
through the laboratory—a wonderfully fur¬ 
nished building— tny attention was called to 
the Balance rooms, where are the scales for 
weighing “atoms,” a: d a short length of hair, 
which had just been weighed, turned the bal¬ 
ance at the sixteen thousandth of a grain ! 
Johns Hopkins was not particularly' beloved 
in his life, but in his death he is honored; he 
left millions of dollars for beneficent purposes. 
He had a beautiful country residence just out- 
side the city, which he probably intended for 
the seat of the Universit}*, which has been lo¬ 
cated in the heart of the city. The grounds of 
this charming country place were laid out by 
William Saunders, of the Agricultural De¬ 
partment, at Washington, and by him named 
"Clifton Park,” by which name it is still 
known. Baltimore has been peculiarly blessed 
in her rich men. Wives and children are 
hostages to fortune, and they usually get the 
money that would otherwise be applied to the 
benefit aud pleasure of the public, Peabody 
never married his first love, and probably his 
only love married another man, and she be¬ 
came the grandmother of the blonde beauty I 
have hitherto mentioned. ’Twas a curious ro¬ 
mance, which I have not the room to relate. 
Johns Hopkins was a bachelor, and Eaoch 
Pratt, the founder of the great Enoch Pratt 
Free Library soon to be opened, has no chil¬ 
dren. The very last things I went, to see in 
Baltimore were the camels presented to Mr. 
Garrett by King Humbert of Italy. They are 
wintered iu stables where the temperature is at 
55°, and they' eat nothing but hay. In the 
Winter they have swelled necks, and from 
small holes back of each ear issues a tarry like 
substance. These peculiarities are entirely 
normal for the season, and they are cross as 
bears. 
-»♦«- 
SUPERSTITION. 
Yes, we are all superstitious! I do not be¬ 
lieve there is one person in America who is 
not at some time or other iufected with it. It 
is not entirely signs or omens that make peo¬ 
ple superstitious; but let a person spill salt, 
or see the new moon over the left shoulder, 
aud he will think, if he does not speak it, that 
it is a bad sign; aud if any misfortune 
or accident befall him soon afterwards, he will 
surely think he hud a warning of it. If a 
housewife sneezes before breakfast, she will ex¬ 
pect company to dinner. If die drops her dish- 
wiper, she thinks it is a sign of company to 
supper. “ Three lamps in a row is a sign that 
to a funeral you will go.” 
To meet three white horses in a row is u 
sign that you will hear of a death among your 
frieuds; or will go to a funeral. To dream of 
going to a wedding, is a sign you will attend 
a funeral; and if you go to a funeral in your 
dreams, you will surely have au invitation to 
a wedding in a short time. No, we will uot 
admit we believe in signs or dreams, vet who 
is there that does uot think of them almost 
every day of their lives? Dreams are funuy 
things, upy w ay; and it is a curjoqs pfiepojqe 
non how very real they seem, even after we 
are wide awake. We do not believe in dreams! 
No, of course not! If one does, they are 
ridiculed for being so foolish; but our dreams 
are brought to mind occasionally' by | 
some real life occurrence, and we cannot help 
thinking of them. Is it superstition? Of j 
course we do not believe in witches, for they 
were all burned long years ago: and no one 
in the present century has seen one riding on 
a broomstick, or a black eat; yet we see some 
people who act in such a way that we wonder 
if they are uot bewitched. Ghosts are all out J 
of fashion; yet almost every one has at some 
time in tbeir lives seensomething that scared 
them awfully, and they could not tell what it 
was. Honestly, everybody has more or less 
superstition; whether it was born in them, 
or whether the result of early' education, who 
can tell? S. h. r. 
HOW TO KNIT A SCARF. 
Materials, eight-ply Berlin wool, or four- 
ply fleecy, selecting any' two colors that con¬ 
trast for the ends, the center being made with 
one of the colors only'; two knitting-needles, 
No. 8. Cast, ou 74 stitches; this allows three 
stitches for each pattern, and four over, two 
for each edge. 
First row.—Bring the wool in front of the 
pin in the right hand, then turn the wool 
quite round the needle so as to bring it in the 
front again, and seam two stitches together; 
* the wool will now be in the front: turn it 
round the needle so as to bring it in the front 
again, pass the needle down the next stitch, 
and take it off without knitting it; then seam 
the next two stitches together and repeat from 
* to the end of the row. 
Second Row.—Bring the wool in front of 
the needle aud turn it round as before, then 
seam two stiches together; * turn the wool 
round the ueedle, bringing it in the front; 
then slip the next stitch thus—put the ueedle 
down at the back of the stitch, and, bringing 
the needle iu the front, take off the front part 
of the stitch without knitting it—this stitch 
slipped is a longloop; then seam the two next 
stitches, and repeat from * to the end of the 
row. All the rows are the same as the second. 
Knit six rows of each color alternately for 
about a quarter of a yard, then, working the 
same stitch, but ouly one of the wools, knit 
about one yard, and make the other end to 
correspond with the beginning. Tie in a 
fringe. 
(Terms used in knitting: Narrow means 
two stitches together; 8 together means knit 
three stitches together as one; t over 1 means 
put thread over needle once, thus making an 
extra stitch; t over 2 means put thread over 
needle twice, thus making two extra stitches; 
t over 3, t over 4, t over 5, etc.) 
EVA M. NILES. 
Domestic Ccononu) 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY MAPLE. 
A FARMER’S DAUGHTER’S DOMESTIC 
REVERIE.—No 8. 
CHARITY SWEETHEART. 
February 1. —A mouth has gone, aud I ask 
myself often, “What have I done?” Only the 
petty details of every-day life,—the cooking, 
patching and darniug, aud yet we call this 
lifting! Last Sunday the minister said, “The 
best part of every life is that spent, in the ful¬ 
filment of duty,” aud the thought has haunted 
me all the week. Y esterday old Mrs. Pender 
came over from Cladtown. She has lived 
sixty year* caring for others—"nursing,” she 
calls it. “Ah! child," she said, “you don’t 
know wheu you are well off. What wouldn't 
my patients give for your blooming cheeksl 
Health is everything,” l felt rebuked for my 
rebellious thoughts. She guve me a good 
many hints about the care of invalids, espe¬ 
cially as to diet, aud I noted down a table 
showing how long a time some of the articles 
of food commonly in use take to digest. Fresh 
when ten bread, three hours thirty minutes; 
boiler! potatoes, three hours; roasted or baked, 
au hour less, beans, two hours and a half; 
Corn-bread, three hours fifteen miuutes; sweet 
apples only an hour and a half, while some 
apples take three hours, less ton minutes 
Custard is considered a light diet, yet it takes 
two hours and three-quarters, while sago di¬ 
gests in one-hour-and-a-half. I asked her how 
often she fed a convalescent, aud she said that 
the best division was, nine, one, five and nine 
o’clock. I am finding out one fact I have 
never discovered before, and that is oue can 
learn something either of precept or example 
from every one, however ignorant, and that 
many country people, who have but little 
book-learning, have a “free bookless lore,”— 
the lessons Nature taught them. 
After all, there Is no teacher like Nature; 
no voice so true, no lessons so profound. One 
has only to look aud listen, that one may see 
and heai*. 
February 4. —While washing to day, I 
suddenly determined to attend to a lot of 
feathers that had been accumulating from be¬ 
fore the holidays. They were in a bag, aud it 
was a job I very much disliked. But then, 
“must be” has to be obeyed. I trimmed the 
plumes from the stumps, and put them all 
back into the bag. By that time my uose and 
mouth felt full of fluff, and I began to feel 
cross. But l tied the bag, and put it iu the 
boiler, with the steam washer, aud now that 
they are nearly dry they feel quite light and 
smell clean. I find ammonia saves me a great 
deal of work in washing men’s heavy flannels; 
the dirt slips out of them so easily. But it is 
not good to make it too strong, for I know 
people who insist that the too free use of am¬ 
monia gives numbness to the arms. Some tea 
stains in the table cloth I removed by pouring 
boiling water through the stain before wash¬ 
ing. 
February 8 .—We have one comfortable 
chair iu our living-room upholstered in blue 
da mask. It, is a family heir-loom, and I notice 
that it is getting soiled. So I bought a brown 
linen towel of good quality, with fringed 
ends, tied the center with a ribbon, put the 
tied center in the midd le of the back of the 
chair, and spread out the ends, fastening it 
well. It can be easily washed, and will keep 
the chair from auy further soiling. 1 try to 
have things nice, but do not believe in girls 
wasting their time iu a lot of foolish fancy 
work to put into rooms that have no preten¬ 
tions to be fanciful. I would rather spend any 
spare time I have iu mental work. Some 
people sneer and say "Farmers' daughters do 
not ueed culture,” but I think if they feel the 
need of it they do need it. 
- »+♦ - — 
A WORD FOR THE BOYS. 
ADELINE E. STORY. 
What patient, sturdy creatures the boys of 
the day must needs be, if they are to bear the 
half of what some who, in their zeal to ease 
the burdens of other people, stand ready to 
thrust upon them. They would have them' 
wash the dishes, make the beds, wash and iron, 
sweep and mop. Now, these things must 
necessarily be done by some one, and no one 
likes better to see a boy handy and willing 
about the house than myself, but while I claim 
to know something about farming and farm 
life, with its multitudinous out-door chores 
recurring regularly morning, noon and night 
the year round, I think I know a good deal 
more about boys and I know that with boys 
on a farm, at least, tlieir moments of leisure 
are already far too few without their being 
pounced upon and required to transform* 
themselves into maids-of-all work the moment 
they come into the house, I believe it to be a 
fact that uot one adult in twenty, male or fe¬ 
male, ever suspects a boy of having any little 
plans of his own tor spending an idle half- 
hour, “I have nothing for John to do just 
now, so he can help you." Bo it is John here 
aud John there. It is really wonderful how 
many things are waiting for John; how many 
odd jobs can be trumped up for his unwilling 
hands. If the famil}' is well balanced, a Jane 
for every John, oue would think that indoors 
at least, the boys would find rest. Not so, 
for every girl in the household looks upon him 
as her lawful prey. Hardly one boy in ten 
between the years of eight and sixteen 
but regards an older sister very much iu the 
light of a nuisance that there is no abatiug. 
Aud no wonder, since she has somehow got 
the universal opinion that the only thing to 
be done with a boy is to keep him busy wait¬ 
ing upon some oue. 
Tired! Does anybody everthiuk a boy can 
be tired? He would be laughed at for hiutiug 
at such a thing! We elders may take to our 
easy chuirs glad of a little rest - , the girls may 
loll on the sofa or yawn over senseless tasks, 
yclept fancy work; while the boys turn the 
grindstone for the hired man, run an errand 
to the back lot, bring up the horses for the 
girls to ride, or pump water for the flower 
beds, do anything iu fact but have a few 
minutes to themselves. 
It may be right ami proper for village aud 
city boys who have nothing or next to noth 
iug to do, to take hold and a(d in the work 
of the house, aud 1 know if i had a lad of that 
class (o ileal with he would haye aq excellent 
