tilizer supplies,and our readers will do well to 
send for the dozen or more of instructive cir¬ 
culars which they will send to applicants. 
Prices and samples will also be sent on appli¬ 
cation. 
Hydraulic Ram. Circular from Allen 
Gawthrop Jr., Wilmington, Delaware.—Our 
readers will remember that Mr. Gawthrop 
fully explained the principle and workings of 
the hydraulic ram last year in the Rural. 
Those who desire to learn more about this 
method of raising water should send for this 
circular which contains very complete par¬ 
ticulars. These rams are first-class in ev.ry 
way. 
J. W. Hall, Marion Station, Somerset Co., 
- Md.—Price-list and catalogue of “High-bred 
seed potatoes.” 
TWonwti’s Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN. 
French lawyers and journalists are discus¬ 
sing w hether a man has the right to open his 
wife’s letters. Both legal and ecclesiastical 
lights decide that he has such a right; the only 
dissenting opinion is from the famous Madame 
Adam; she thinks that auy man who would 
open bis wife’s letters is nothing more or less 
than a blackguard. 
Weare told that the bustle will soon be a 
thing of the past, hut all the new French and 
English gowns we have seen this spring have 
an immense tournure. Some of these large 
draperies are prettily arranged in a loose cas¬ 
cade at the hack instead of the conventional 
looping. 
Most of the spring hats are immensely high, 
and are fearfully and wonderfully trimmed. 
Flowei*s seem likely to dispute the reign of 
feathers to a certain extent. A pretty spring 
bonnet was a capote of black beaded net, 
fluted over a foundation of black silk: it was 
trimmed with stiff loops of roso-piuk ribbou 
and a bunch of pink rose buds. 
There is an attempt being made to introduce 
puffed and fluted sleeves, wiiich have been in 
vogue in London for two seasons past. It is 
a fashion which recommends itself to the 
slender but it is not likely to be followed by 
women with shape]}' anus. 
--- 
WORK FOR THE SEASON. 
Tee truth of the old rhyme: 
“Man’s work Is from sun to sun. 
But woman's work Is never done,” 
is pathetically and especially apparent to the 
tired housekeeper in the spring of the year. 
She is stared in the face by the inevitable and 
never-to-'ie-shirked “house cleaning.” Closets 
and bundles, bags and trunks are all to be over¬ 
hauled; the war against moths and vermin to 
be actively prosecuted, aud the unpleasant 
consciousness that Jennie’s skirts and dresses 
are to be lengthened and that. Jack must have 
a new supply in toto of jackets and trousers 
forces itself upon her recognition. 
Closets are the pride of the rigorously neat 
housekeepers, and the graves of many a skele¬ 
ton of disorder and worthless economies 
among the opposite class. If one only has the 
courage and strength to keen up to the resolu¬ 
tion, it is a gooil plan to do away with this 
yearly cleaning of closets, by always arrang¬ 
ing one wheu you find it in disorder. A 
steady adherence to this plan will soon have 
the result of milking you very careful to re¬ 
turn every article to its appointed place. 
Wheu it is necessary to whiteu a closet, if it 
is otherwise in order, half the labor is obviat¬ 
ed. I have always found that wheu I attend¬ 
ed to the china closob myself, I did not need 
to put clean papers on the shelves oftener than 
once in three months, while if intrusted to the 
girl, she would give it a regular overhauling 
every fortnight, and in two or three days it 
would be m as- great confusion as before. 
In making up a supply of bed linen it is 
much the better plan to buysheetingtwo-and- 
a-half yards wide, instead of the old-fashioned 
plan of seaming the sheets up the center, 
which is a wicked waste of time. Five-and-a- 
half yards are the requisite quantity for one 
pair. Finish one end of each with a hem two 
inches wide, and the other half the width. 
Pillow cases are much trimmed up their long, 
falling ends, few ladies now arranging them 
to button. Pillow and sheet shams are also 
disappearing, and a covering of sateen, bro¬ 
cade, or other fanciful material harmonizing 
or contrasting with the tinting of the room, is 
When Baby wag sick, we gave lierCantoria 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castorla, 
Wheu she became Miss, she clung 10 Castorla, 
When she hud Children, 8 be gave them Castorla 
laid over the bed in French fashion after it is 
fully made up. 
New furniture coverings are usually made 
up in the spring. Linens, white, gray, buff 
or striped are still used, but sateens and wash¬ 
able cretonnes are really the prettiest and 
most suitable. a rural reader. 
WHAT SHALL THE CHILDREN READ. 
—III. 
RHODA LANDER. 
The children will grow and as their minds 
expand stronger food must be furnished. Re- 
aliziug th is fact those wise friendsof the chil¬ 
dren,the Messrs. Lothrop, publishers, have as a 
successor to the “Pansy” the well known “Wide 
Awake,” a monthly, the price of which has 
just been reduced from $3 to $2.40. It is a 
deservedly popular periodical, not a dull page 
in it, instructive lessons in history, charming 
descriptions of foreign countries, romantic 
and perilous adventures (all true), fasciuating 
and helpful stories, delightful poems, all com¬ 
bine to make the “Wide Awake” a blessing to 
girls and boys, “St. Nicholas” and “Harpers’ 
Young People” are also excellent magazines 
for young people. 
As the time when the children are in their 
“early teens” is one of grea t anxiety to par¬ 
ents, so fearful are they that bad habits may 
be formed, the most vigilant oversight must 
be given to their reading. Have them read 
aloud to you, while you work: talk over with 
them the contents of each volume, do not let 
them fancy you too old to be interested in their 
youthful books. And as it is well to give them 
a tendency to become familiar with a few 
authors, rather than to “dip iuto” the writ¬ 
ings of a large number, follow the plan re¬ 
commended in a previous article—to review 
thoroughly ever}’thing read. 
Have they become specially interested in 
history? There is a charming “Child’s His¬ 
tory of England,” by Dickens; “Our Young 
Folks’ Roman Empire,” by W. Shepard, 
* ‘ Young People’s History of the United States,” 
by Thomas Higgiuscm, “A Library of Enter¬ 
taining History,” edited by Arthur Gilman, 
comprising histories of America, India, Egypt, 
Spain, Switzerland. 
Have they developed a love for biography? 
Do they have a uew r desire to know about the 
early life of famous people, to follow them up 
the ladder of fame? Then get for them 
some of the “Popular Biographies,” such as 
Lincoln, Longfellow, Washington, Webster, 
Sumner, Garfield, Livingstone, 'Whittier, 
Franklin, “Men of Mark” “Noble Workers,’’ 
“Stories of Success” all admirable volumes. 
“Poor Boys who became Famous” by S. K. 
Bolton contains a number of short, well-writ¬ 
ten sketches of noted men and that the girls 
may not feel slighted there is a companion 
volume of “Girls who became Famous,” giv¬ 
ing most interesting facts in the lives of some 
of our celebrated women. Place one of these 
books in the hands of any thoughtful hoy or 
girl and it will surely leave a healthful and 
elevating impression upon the mind. 
Has previous training in natural history 
given them an intense love for that study, so 
that they have an absorbing fancy for learn¬ 
ing all about the flowers, stones, insects aud 
animals? The “Tenants of an old Farm,” by 
Dr. M. Cook will he full of charms for them. 
“Sketches in Natural History” will be of in¬ 
terest, written by J. C. Atkinson. “Our Birds 
and tbeir Hauuts,” by Rev. J. H. Langille. 
“How plants Grow,” by Gray. “Old Ocean” 
by Ernest lagersoli aud “Dooryard Folks” by 
Miss Harris, all instructive and entertaining 
books which caunot fail to accomplish good. 
Rev. J, G. Wood has an admirable “Illus¬ 
trated Natural History for Young People” 
which cannot fail to please a bright young 
mind. 
Of books ol travel there is a wide fiedd from 
which to select. “Great Cit ies of the Modern 
World” and its companion volume, “Great 
Cities of the Ancient World,” by Hazel Shep¬ 
hard are not journeys but descriptions of 
different cities of their natural life, their va¬ 
rious institutions, their industries, ttie people 
and their varied pursuits. “Half Hours in 
the Holy Land” by Norman McLeod. “Bits 
of Travel” by Helen Hunt Jackson. “O’er 
Many Lands, On Many Seas,” by Dr. Staples. 
“ European Breezes ” by Margery Deane. 
“Stories of Foreign Lauds,” by “Pansy” are 
well worth reading and studying. 
HOUSEKEEPERS AND HOMEKEEPERS. 
B. B. 
No one will deny that these terms (the latter 
is perhaps one of my own coining) are not 
synonomous. The best housekeeepers very 
often fail to make a home for their 
families. “1 never had much of a home,” I 
once heard a gentleman remark, whose mother 
liad been u moat notable housewife, “every¬ 
thing was too clean. Ahoy who is incon¬ 
stant terror, as 1 was from my earliest years, 
of forgetting to wipe his feet, or of making 
finger prints on the paint, cannot be said to 
have had a boy-life. I used to think that my 
mother loved her spotless carpets and windows 
better than she did me.” I am sure there are 
many children who could tell a like story. I 
know just how hard it is when there is every¬ 
thing to be done and only one pair of hands 
to do it. I have kept house in the country 
and in the city, with aud without, servants, 
and I know all that eau be said on the subject 
of work that it is impossible to neglect with¬ 
out making double trouble for some future 
day. There are, however, certain things that 
can be left undone without detriment to the 
health or happinpss of any of the family. 
There are also things that can be slighted. A 
word to the wise is sufficient. I have heard 
mothers declare that they never found time 
to read to their little ones; and to tell them a 
story would have seemed a frightful waste of 
time, and I have looked at the ruffles on the 
pinafores and skirts of those little ones and re¬ 
flected that the ironing alone, to say nothing 
of the making, of those be-ruffled garments 
would take more time than the reading or 
telling of many stories. 
I am not by any means a model housekeeper, 
but my children love their home, aud although 
the paint is sometimes grimey and the win¬ 
dows dingy, my boys, who are well-grown 
lads, declare that they find no place so pleas¬ 
ant. I do not deny that it is a cross to a woman 
to look at undone work, but like most crosses 
the longer aud more cheerfully you carry it 
the lighter it grows. Let the making of your 
home be your first work, the care of your 
house the second, aud your husband and little 
ones will be the happier. When you find that 
you are overworking yourself, use your ingen¬ 
uity in discovering how many things can be 
left undone. If I were a man 1 would sooner 
put up with considerable good, honest dirt, 
than with the sighs aud groans of a physically 
exhausted woman, for the women who work 
themselves “to death,” are seldom such hero¬ 
ines as not to tell of it. 
There is a good deal of philosophy in the 
old doggerel: 
"There's too much labor goes to a bonnet, 
There’s too much ironing goes to a shirt, 
There’s nothing that's worth the trouble put, on it, 
There’s nothing that's constant but worry and dirt." 
Perhaps I didn’t look at it in the right light, 
but mauy a time I have said to myself, “Since 
‘There’s too much ironing goes to a shirt,’ I 
will see if 1 cannot make less do, and have 
polished wristbands, collar and bosom as nice¬ 
ly as my skill in laundry work would allow, 
aud given the plain parts a hasty rub that 
would have doue credit to a Chiuese laundry- 
man, and was strongly suggestive of a “rough 
dry.” Even that small saving of time was an 
object, however, when I bad six to iron, and 
I consoled myself by reflecting that, my hus¬ 
band was the most short, sighted and absent 
minded of men. 
I also abolished feather beds. They are un¬ 
healthy to lie on, and a woman who does her 
own housework has plenty of exercise with¬ 
out beating and punching and turning thirty 
or forty pounds of feathers every day. It is 
much easier to make a bed look pretty with 
only a mattress, and with springs it is quite 
as comfortable. I am quite well aware that I 
have shocked mauy of the gooil readers of the 
Rural by my unorthodox opinions, but I am 
convinced that “Patty Garten” will shake 
hands with me in regard to these same opin¬ 
ions. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
“Alt, the civil and religious liberty that 
there is to-day in France, in Germany, in 
Switzerland) iu England, and in the United 
States was achieved by the masses, and it was 
most significant that having laid the founda¬ 
tion of this principle in many lands, they 
should create the foundation for the Statue 
of Liberty unveiled amid the hosannas of 
people, transatlantic aud cisatlautic”. 
Learn the art, to be preferred before all 
others, of beiug happy when alone—which 
consists iu the encouragement of good hopes 
and rational pursuits, in leading an industri¬ 
ous life, and in having constantly before you 
some object of attainment. 
The beautiful in heart is a million times 
more avail iu securing domestic happiness 
than the beantjful in person..... 
The foolish and the dead alone never change 
tbeir opinions...... 
Keei’ a high vitality. Sleep well, eat well, 
enjoy life.'. 
Be content w>th small beginnings—and be 
sure to develop them. 
Be cautious; but when you make a bargain, 
make it quietly and boldly. 
Stick to your chosen pursuit, but not to 
chosen methods... 
A Vermont deacon who was hauled up for 
horse racing on Sunday, made reply: “I don’t 
approve of horse-racin’, but when another 
member of the church becomes so godless as 
to try to pass me on the road cornin’ home 
from meetin’, I feel it my duty to the church 
to let out a leetle on the reins, just to keep 
him from puttiug Ins trust in earthly things.” 
Domestic Ceottomi} 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AONES E. M. CARMAN. 
MY ONION BUTTER. 
Yes! that is what I must call it. I never 
heard of that name before, but I was the un- 
happy possessor of this, and, moreover, I 
made it myself. When I stop to think of it, I 
do not see what else I could have done but 
make it. But when it was made, what to do 
with it was a puzzling question. Fate settled 
that question forme, a ml disposed of my onion 
butter in such a way that I had nothing to say 
about the matter. In truth, I should have 
been glad to have known more about its final 
disposal than I did. After all, I had cause to 
be sincerely thankful that I had made the ob¬ 
noxious article in question. You will under¬ 
stand I am a farmer’s wife aud a farmer’s 
daughter. If iu my girlhood I was something 
of a romp, T learned to he handy at doing a 
great mauy things that are commonly sup¬ 
posed to be “boys’ work.” Better than all, I 
liked to be with the cows at milking time and 
have them follow me about, the yard for the 
lump of salt, the apple, or the ear of corn I 
was sure to have for them. 
When we took possession of our own little 
farm, Harry aud I took great care of and 
pride iu our little herd of Jerseys. I had 
served a thorough apprenticeship at butter¬ 
making witli my mother, who was considered 
one of the best butter-makers in the couuty. 
When Harry proposed getting a number of 
customers iu the adjoining city, to supply . 
regularly with our own “gilt-edged" butter, I 
did not fear but I could satisfy the most fas¬ 
tidious with butter of my own making. 
We bad no difficulty in securing customers 
for all the butter we could make through the 
season, and it was with no little pride that I 
got tilings ready for his Saturday morning 
trip of marketing. 
One beautiful September morning while he 
was away on this same business and the hired 
man was far aw ay in another direction. I looked 
from the window to see our pretty Jerseys in the 
onion patch eating the strong tasting vegeta¬ 
bles with as much eagerness as if they were 
the choicest apples. It was but the work of a 
few minutes for me to open the gate aud lead 
them, one at a time, into the barn. They 
knew me and were as docile as lambs in my 
hands, Once there, I gave them a generous 
supply of hay, and left them until some one 
would come to repair the broken fence that 
had let them into forbidden grouuds. The 
cream from the next two milkings I gathered 
by itself and by itself it was churned. I had 
a fear that the taste of onions might be found 
in the butter. How uieoly it camel How 
firm and yellow it looked; but, alas! it, was 
onion butter — full and full of the 
taste of the vegetables the cows had dined 
upon. I moulded it as I always did into one- 
pound lumps, with a stamp of a pineapple on 
one end of each. I put it by itself in a cov¬ 
ered vessel, aud wondered what 1 should do 
when Saturday •tunc. It would never do to 
send that to our customers. What should I 
do with the stud' anyway? Twelve pounds in 
all—too costly to throw away, not good 
enough for the table, and unfit for cooking. 
I nearly gave way to a lit of crying over 
the vexation of it. Harry settled one diffi¬ 
culty by proposing to get the butter for our 
Saturday oustomei-s of my mother. But what 
to do with what we had he did not pretend to 
say; that belonged to the house-keeper to 
decide. 
I slept miserably that night. I believe that 
onion butter weighed my spirits down so 
heavily that I could not sleep. Several t imes 
I heard Our dog barking furiously at some dis¬ 
tance from the house, and dreamily 1 won¬ 
dered what incensed him so much. When 
morning came I had reason to guess, and rea¬ 
son to mourn that 1 hail not roused myself to 
fiud out what angered him at the time. Early in 
the morning everyone was stirring. As I was 
setting the breakfast table 1 wondered at Hie 
scarcity of spoons in the holder. My little 
maul said she had counted thorn when she 
washed the tea dishes, and they were all there, 
aud that she put them in their proper place. 
I know she must have seen in my face that I 
did uot fully believe it; that--to say the least 
—1 thought she was mistaken. When 1 knew 
the whole truth 1 regretted that look, and re¬ 
solved in future to treat a child’s word with 
as much respect as I would a grown person’s. 
Not only were the spoons missing, but my 
eortVe-pot was gone. Then I began to look 
around to see what was the matter. I thought 
