698 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
OCTOBER i9 
with this mixture were very fine, being full 
of pods. The 2\{ acres are rowed both ways, 
feet apart and planted with corn, beans 
and potatoes. As a result of my past ex¬ 
perience, next year I shall plant potatoes in 
drills, for then it is much easier to put on 
the Paris-green. p. c. 
Waste of Manure. —In passing over the 
country I often see barns and pig-pens built 
on high ground just above some deep hol¬ 
low into which drifts all the wash from 
the manure thrown out of the barn-yards 
and pig-pens and accumulating around 
them. I have in my mind now a certain 
place the owner of which I visited and tried 
to get him to subscribe for the R. N.-Y. 
He said he could not afford it; he had no 
time to read it. On looking around I found 
his barn, pig-pens and feeding yards located 
as described above. In the hollow below 
flowed a stream from a spring across which 
a dam was thrown so as to make a water¬ 
ing place for stock, and to catch the wash 
from all those places where his manure ac¬ 
cumulates. In my opinion such men never 
will feel able to take a first-class agricultu¬ 
ral paper or have time to read one. 
Gooseberries. —The Triumph has fruit¬ 
ed with me three years very satisfactorily. 
It is more prolific than the Industry and 
has not mildewed, and it has been so far 
the best I have ever seen. 
Apples. —I have fruited the Yellow 
Transparent and Wealthy Apples and they 
merit all that is claimed for them, except 
the claim for their early ripening. The 
first is later than the Harvest and the 
Wealthy is ripe in the last of August and 
first of September. I. hicks. 
Queens County, N. Y. 
Womans Work, 
CONDUCTED BT EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
O UR correspondent who writes of the 
healthfulness of housework is right; 
the daily domestic tasks do give a health¬ 
ful series of calisthenics. The only thing 
lacking is abundance of fresh air, and this 
we are apt to overlook. Of course all 
chamber-work must be done, save in the 
most inclement weather, with wide-open 
windows—but frequently the need of ven¬ 
tilation is overlooked during other work. 
Still, a broom and a bread-pan would be a 
highly desirable 'prescription for many a 
woman suffering from some of the mysteri¬ 
ous nerve ailments which seem to afflict 
so many. 
* 
* * 
One reason why housework seems such 
dispiriting drudgery to many women is be¬ 
cause they make its most sordid and mater¬ 
ial side always uppermost, chief object of 
their words and thoughts. If necessity 
compels them to live frugally they make 
narrow, grinding cares conspicuous in every 
way. Now, one can’t always ignore a nar¬ 
row or empty purse, nor is poverty a thing 
to be ashamed of, but there is no reason in 
making the unhappiness of poverty every¬ 
where conspicuous. If we are compelled to 
make shifts and expedients in household 
affairs—most of us are—let us take it cheer¬ 
fully, and not thrust the expedient before 
every one. There is plenty to make life 
worth living, even if we do wear cotton 
gowns and walk over rag carpets. 
* 
* * 
This seems wandering far from the origi¬ 
nal subject. But we so often notice that 
the women who seem to suffer physically 
from their housework look upon it from 
the first as drudgery and nothing else. 
After all, good temper and cheerfulness 
lighten much of the hardest toil. 
Last week one of our correspondents 
made some very sensible suggestions rela¬ 
tive to lightening the daily tasks. We be¬ 
lieve fully in making preparations this day 
for the next day’s toil, so long as too much 
is not attempted. A little bit of thought¬ 
fulness the night before will ease many a 
busy day. One of our neighbors always 
prepares for sweeping day the night before, 
by moving the bric-a-brac and most of the 
furniture out of the parlor, so that sweep¬ 
ing may begin without unnecessary delay. 
Even in the ordinary living room, a good 
deal of clearing out may be done the night 
before, and this usually takes longer than 
the sweeping. 
*- 
* * * 
Another way of saving time is always 
to decide, the night before, of what the 
meals are to consist the next day. What is 
more perplexing than to decide on the 
dinner at two hours’ notice, especially in 
the country, where deficiencies cannot be 
remedied at a moment’s notice P It is far 
better to know beforehand, and decide on 
every detail of the bill of fare. 
That question of the daily bill of fare is 
most perplexing: it is not so hard to decide 
on the dinner a day ahead, or for a week at 
a time, but think what an endless vista of 
dinners one must look forward to. Really, 
a housekeeper’s lot is not always a happy 
one. 
Breakfast is not always an easy meal to 
arrange; it is difficult to provide a change 
where hearty food is desired. In too many 
cases, breakfast consists almost entirely of 
fried meats and vegetables, fried pork, fried 
sausage, and, crowning horror, fried beef¬ 
steak. Of course, where an early breakfast 
must be hastily cooked it is impossible to 
get up a fire for broiling, but still frying 
should not be the only method of cooking. 
In addition, there should always be some 
cereal, rolled oats, crushed wheat, oat- 
flake, or something of the kind. There is 
no excuse for omitting this on a farm, 
where milk should be plentiful. But no 
rigid rules can ever be laid down for the 
bill of fare : it must be left to the tastes and 
fancies of each family individually. 
. THE HEALTHFULNESS OF HOUSE¬ 
WORK. 
OLIVE E. DANA. 
T HE out-door haunts, which have been 
so alluring, are growing cheerless 
and chilly. Vacation is done, and all life’s 
activities are calling with new authority. 
Summer pleasures and pastimes are fast 
being forgotten, or are laid away safely in 
memory to brighten dark days or tide over 
dull hours. The little boats lie with idle 
oars, and the fishes fear no longer the an¬ 
gler’s skill. Only the crack of the hunter’s 
rifle rings through the forest stillness. 
Those who have found muscle-making 
exercise in woodland tramps and up-river 
rows, are very likely, if their work is of 
brain and nerve rather than of hand and 
limb, glad to seek some healthy play of 
muscle at the healthlift or gymnasium. 
Happy are they whose vocation calls for 
both hand-work and head-work in health¬ 
ful balance. Happy are they whose tasks 
do not leave one set of muscles entirely 
unused, while on another, perhaps, the ten¬ 
sion is exhausting. 
The house-keeper has no such discrepancy 
to complain of; her work calls all the facul¬ 
ties into healthful action. It stretches 
every muscle, yet the frequent change of 
attitude and motion forbid undue strain 
on any. I think the healthfulness of house¬ 
work is too little regarded. Because one 
may have too much of it, because it is not 
wisely planned, because surroundings are 
physically harmful, or because one gets, for 
any reason, too little fresh air aud social 
intercourse, it does not follow, as a logical 
conclusion, that the work itself was injur¬ 
ious. For the very opposite is true. Some¬ 
how neither women nor physicians seem al¬ 
ways to take sufficiently into the account 
the beneficent influences, tonic and sedative, 
of a regular course of housework; the 
strength it gives to flabby muscles; the 
tone it imparts to jaded nerves; the alert¬ 
ness, both of mind and body, which it de¬ 
mands and secures. And writers, treating 
of health and exercise, and health by exer¬ 
cise, give this very cursory motive usually, 
or very likely none at all. 
It is true that Mr. Higginson, in his 
“ Out-Door Papers,” had occasion to speak 
of “ those bracing calisthenics,” bread- 
making in well-ventilated kitchens, and 
sweeping in many-windowed rooms.” But 
what woman who does her own work 
doesn’t know that these two employments, 
important as they are, include but a tithe 
of “ the motions ” one must “ go through 
with ” in even one forenoon’s work-' 
Though one complain ever so bitterly of 
“ drudgery,” she can but confess that, like 
. most other tasks miscalled by that name, 
it is the most wholesome of work. And 
however monotonous she may call it, and 
lacking in variety, she will own in wiser 
moments, that the lack was all her own,— 
of heart or hopefulness or wisdom, of out¬ 
door air or neighborly interests, of broader 
out-look or intelligence, or of some other 
God-created element—and by no means the 
fault of the housewife. 
And it is something, surely, when the 
November rains are falling and the wild 
winds blowing, and by-and-by the white 
snows are drifting and the mercury is at 
zero, to feel that one’s “constitutional,” if 
she needs one, or calls it by that name, may 
be taken between dining-room and kitchen, 
between pantry and cooking-stove, to know 
that by the time the morning’s baking is 
finished, and the chamber work is done and 
the parlor and sitting-room set in order, 
and the plants showered, and the piazza- 
floor swept, and the outer kitchen made 
tidy, she will have had the benefit of such 
a series of calisthenics as no schoolroom 
exercise can offer, or the gymnasium itself 
afford, and will beside, so far as she is able, 
have made the home wherein she reigns “a 
thing of beauty and a joy ” for 24 hours 
longer. 
AT THE FAIR. 
J. H. G. 
T HE agricultural press indulges in 
about the same amount of scolding 
year after year because of the presence of 
fakirs and horse-racing on the fair grounds. 
The fact, however, is that in the vicinity of 
New York at least, the fairs which attract 
the greatest number and variety of fakirs 
and side-shows, and which have the best 
trotting, are the ones which are patronized 
most liberally by the farmers. The aver¬ 
age farmer sees horses and cattle, and 
pumpkins and corn all the year round, and 
he usually goes to the fair for a change. 
He w r ants to meet old friends and acquain¬ 
tances and have a little fun. 
The manager of the most successful local 
fair within 100 miles from New York, said 
that so long as the fair was a “moral” one 
it was in financial trouble, and finally, 
failed altogether ; but since it had been run 
in a business-like way the value of its prop¬ 
erty had been increased from an insignifi¬ 
cant sum to something like a quarter of a 
million dollars. He added : “Farmers do 
not want to see pumpkins and squashes ; 
they see them every day. What they want 
is excitement and fun. ” It is lamentable, 
but evidently too true that the mere exhibit 
of farm products will not attract any con¬ 
siderable number of farmers—within a 
wide radius of New r York at any rate. 
AUTUMN FLOWERS. 
G. S. 
T HERE is perhaps no place where the 
semi-aquatic wild flowers grow to 
greater perfection and beauty than in the 
low plains on the east end of Long Island. 
As a matter of course, the numerous va¬ 
rieties of golden rod (Solidago) predom¬ 
inate, and this common, but not the less 
beautiful because it is common, flower 
forms an appropriate and gilded frame for 
the more brilliant and rarer flowers of the 
meadows. I have in mind a low, marshy 
place—evidently an old pond bed—almost 
entirely filled with the magnificent Car¬ 
dinal Flower—Lobelia eardinalis. It fonns 
a circle of the most brilliant red, while the 
surrounding meadow is yellow and white 
with the golden rod, wild carrots, etc. 
While I am passionately fond of wild 
flowers, the pleasure is greatly marred by 
the difficulty and uncertainty of their iden¬ 
tification, and in this I am not alone. A 
book nicely illustrated and written in a 
popular style upon the wild flowers of the 
Atlantic seaboard would have an enormous 
sale. 
The writings of Burroughs, Tlioreau aud 
others have increased the interest in the 
woodland and the meadow; but amateurs 
who have no time to study botany as a 
science, are so embarassed at their ignor¬ 
ance as to lose very much of their pleasure. 
There is an opportunity for remunerative 
missionary work in this field and it is to be 
hoped that some of our botanists will take 
up the subject. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
I F there be one thing upon the earth that, 
mankind love and admire better than 
another, said General Garfield, it is a brave 
man; it is the man who dares to look the 
devil in the face and tell him -that he is a 
devil. 
An. that God blesses is our good, 
And unblestgood Is ill; 
And all is right that seems most wrong. 
If It be His dear will. 
Books, says Addison, are the legacies 
that a great genius leaves to mankind, 
which are delivered down from generation 
to generation, as presents to the posterity 
of those who are yet unborn. 
Plato said that there is nothing so de¬ 
lightful as the hearing and speaking of the 
truth. For the reason there is no conver¬ 
sation so agreeable as that of the man of 
integrity who hears -without any intention 
to betray, and speaks without any inten¬ 
tion to deceive. 
Sidney Smith says find fault, when you 
must find fault, in private, if possible: and 
some time after the offense, rather than at 
the time. The blamed are less inclined to 
resist, when they are blamed without 
witnesses; both parties are calmer, and 
the accused party is struck with the for¬ 
bearance of the accuser, who has seen the 
fault, and watched for a private and proper 
time for mentioning it. 
Robertson says we should forget mis¬ 
takes or organize victory from them. 
Phillips Brooks thinks that no man or 
woman of the humblest sort can really be 
strong, gentle, pure and good without the 
world being better for it, without somebody 
being helped and comforted by the very 
existence of that goodness. 
We must not hope to be mowers, 
And gather the ripe gold ears. 
Until we have first been sowers. 
And watered thasoll with our tears. 
—Alice Cary. 
Elihu Burritt said there is no power of 
love so hard to get and keep as a kind voice, 
a voice that shall speak at all times the 
thoughts of a kind heart. Watch it day by 
day, as a pearl of great price, for it will be 
worth more to you in days to come than 
the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice 
is to the heart what light is to the eye. It 
is a light that sings as well as shines. 
Train it to sweet tones and it will keep in 
tone through life. 
Prof. Thompson says to the man who 
feels that there is no position, that there 
are no circumstances in which he may not 
by effort and patience, by faith and prayer, 
fulfill the purposes of the Creator regard¬ 
ing him—to such a man the question: Is 
life worth living ? is irrelevant, for it has 
been answered beforehand, and answered 
in the affii-mative. 
The Boston Budget says a Boston Sun¬ 
day School teacher was endeavoring to im¬ 
press upon the minds of her pupils the 
necessity of good behavior. “ You must be 
very careful how you act,” said she, 
“ for if you act badly you will be punished, 
while if you act well you will be rewarded. 
Now, my dears, can any one tell me what 
he will get if he acts well ? ” A bright lit¬ 
tle fellow whose father was an actor, im¬ 
mediately replied : “ Det -tailed before de 
turtain, I dess.”. 
Domestic Ccononu) 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
“ No iron so hard hut rust will fret it, 
No perch so high but climbing will 
get it, 
Noth ing so lost but seeking will, find it, 
No n ight so dark but there's daylight 
behind it.” 
THE INFLUENCE OF FATHERS. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
I N a certain way, the father seems to 
stand as an ideal model for the boy 
more than the mother does for the girl, so 
that the old adage: “Like father, like son,” 
has a peculiar significance. I am often re¬ 
minded of this by hearing my own laddie 
say that he likes a thing done in this or 
that way because it is “ papa’s way,” or 
because “papa does so,” or “thinks so,” and 
Miscellaneous; !3ulvcrti.$in(|. 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Castor la, 
When s he was a Child, she cried for Csstorla, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castorla, 
When she had Children, she gave them Castorla 
-r.W. Faber. 
