1889 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
745 
EXPERIENCES AND REFLECTIONS. 
FRED. GRUNDY. 
We began using onr celery the last week 
in August and have had it on the table 
every day since, and there is enough yet 
standing in the garden to last till the mid¬ 
dle of January. Next week I shall prepare 
a trench eight inches wide and 14 inches 
deep, and when the first freezing cold spell 
conies along all that remains will go into it 
in a jiffy. When lifting the roots to be set 
in the trench I sink a pointed shovel about 
three inches from the plant, grasp it with 
one hand and bear down on the handle of 
the shovel with the other and out they 
come. A gentle rap of the root against the 
handle removes all superfluous earth and it 
is ready for the trench. In the trench it is 
packed moderately close, a little soil is 
thrown on it, the trench is covered with 
boards and straw, and it keeps finely. 
In setting out my celery this season I 
tried a new plan. I wanted to set out 
something over 500 plants and all the 
ground then available was a strip 54 feet 
long by nine wide, so I set the plants six 
inches apart in rows two feet apart. The 
soil was already rich, but when the plants 
were set out I gave it a good dressing of 
well-rotted manure. The plants made a 
vigorous growth from the start, and as 
soon as they were large enough I began to 
blanch some of them by setting three inch 
drain tiles over them. Twenty-five tiles 
were used, and when a plant was cut for 
use the tile was set over another, the out¬ 
side stalks being broken off at the time. 
In this way we have kept the table steadily 
supplied without difficulty. I blanched 
part of one row with boards 12 inches wide, 
setting them on edge on either side of it 
and fastening them together with strips of 
lath. They were placed four inches apart 
at the bottom and two at the top and the 
celery between them blanched very nicely— 
better if anything than that in the tiles. 
Next year I shall set my celery exactly as 
I did this year and on a spot especially en¬ 
riched and prepared for it. That intended 
for early use I shall blanch with boards 12 
feet long and 14 inches wide, setting the 
lower edges four inches apart and the up¬ 
per l}{, and firmly fastening them together 
with short cross-pieces. When the sun 
shines hot, as it often does in the early fall, 
tiles get pretty warm and sometimes toast 
the celery inside, and for this reason boards 
are better at this time than tiles. When the 
weather gets cooler I shall use four-inch 
tile, because it is easier handled than 
boards. Celery blanched with boards or 
tile is much cleaner and nicer than that 
banked with earth. If I had to grow cel¬ 
ery in rows four or five feet apart I should 
set out very little, and if I had laboriously 
to build a levee on either side of it to 
blanch it, I’d go without. 
Plymouth Rocks are the leading breed of 
fowls in this section. They seem to fill the 
bill for an all-purpose fowl better than any 
other. Buyers of market poultry also ap¬ 
pear to prefer them to any other breed and 
quickly snap them up, if fat, at the top 
prices. I notice that fanciers or breeders 
are assiduously cultivating the comb and 
wattles of this breed, and professional 
judges make a practice of awarding the 
premiums and prizes to cocks having 
combs sticking two or more inches above 
their heads and weighing half a pound or so. 
Now I have raised poultry quite a number 
of years, and I have learned that the less 
comb and wattles there are on them the 
better. My poultry house is much warmer 
than the average, and yet some of my fowls 
get their combs and wattles frozen every 
severe winter. A cock or hen that has its 
comb or wattles frozen is utterly worthless 
until the injury is entirely healed. The 
healing of a frozen comb requires from six 
weeks to two months, so if the freezing is 
done in February—as it most frequently is 
—any person possessed of a grain of com¬ 
mon sense can see how the keeper of tail- 
combed fowls is handicapped. Farmers—es¬ 
pecially those living in the Northern States 
—buying cocks for breeding purposesshould 
not accept one having a comb over half an 
inch high. For each additional half-inch 
they should compel the breeder to deduct 
20 per cent, from his regular price; if clip¬ 
ped 50 per cent. None but cranks of the 
most pronounced type would expect farm¬ 
ers to build hot-liouses for their poultry 
merely for the purpose of protecting an 
utterly useless appendage from frost. At 
the St. Louis Fair I noticed that a profes¬ 
sional judge had awarded the first premium 
to a Plymouth Rock with a comb like a 
section of a cross-cut saw, and wattles like 
a pair of saddle-bags. Off with such trump¬ 
ery ! 
In the matter of refurnishing the inter¬ 
ior of poultry houses for the winter, I 
would suggest that the old perches be 
brought down from their high estate and 
placed not over 18 inches above the floor. 
A fowl can roost just as comfortably on a 
low perch as on a high one, while it is very 
much easier to climb upon. The man who 
places the perches even with his nose or 
higher should be compelled to go to bed via 
the roof and chimney route uutil he learns 
better. 
Christian County, Ill. 
Woman's Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
B EAUTIFUL indeed are the furs for 
the coming winter. Long furs seem 
likely to hold sway; chiefly, no doubt, be¬ 
cause the framing of soft hair is so becom¬ 
ing to a woman’s face. The most fashion¬ 
able will be sable, but this is only within 
reach of a wealthy purse. Black monkey, 
stone marten, lynx and bear are favorites; 
cinnamon bear is a very pretty and becom¬ 
ing fur. Apparently the long boas will 
again be worn, and there are many pretty 
cravats and collars. Flaring Medici col¬ 
lars of fur are seen on many new coats, 
and are eminently becoming. Another 
pretty thing is the rounded Russian collar, 
coming in a point to the waist. Fur capes, 
coming to the waist, have been worn more 
than ever this autumn, and they are very 
pretty and comfortable. The newer ones 
are not so much raised on the shoulders as 
they were. Black astrachan is very much 
worn in these capes, sometimes in combi¬ 
nation with other fur. 
Wraps, as well as gowns, may be dated 
by their sleeves. Last year, yon may re¬ 
member, the long coats of the newest mode 
had either bell sleeves or a tight under¬ 
sleeve with a flowing angel sleeve over it. 
This season the newest long coats seen are 
as tight as tight may be, like a redingote 
having a puffed sleeve, either the mousque- 
taire, which is a very wrinkly leg of mut¬ 
ton with the fullness pushed toward the 
top, or else they are made with one large 
puff coming below the elbow, finished by a 
deep velvet cuff. It certainly looks as if 
tight sleeves were entirely in the back¬ 
ground, like the bustle. All the new 
gowns have just one short reed about 12 
inches below the band, just to keep the 
skirt from hanging too heavily, and a little 
thin pad at the top is permissible, but this 
is all; the dress is expected to slope grad¬ 
ually without any protuberance. With 
the disappearance of heavy draperies, tight 
sleeves, and high heels, it does look as if 
fashion were becoming more sensible. 
* * * 
Just think what a woman’s paradise the 
wind-swept State of Kansas must lie! The 
women have put Prohibition in the con¬ 
stitution ; they have full municipal and 
school ballot, and co-education in the State 
University. Women are school commis¬ 
sioners, and treasurers of school boards, 
superintendents of schools, registers of 
deeds, and police justices. The Assistant 
Attorney General is a woman, and there are 
more woman preachers, doctors, lawyers, 
bankers, farmers, editors and merchants 
than in any other State. Truly woman’s 
sphere must be in the State of Kansas. 
* 
« * 
Apropos of the Kansas women, the Atchi¬ 
son Globe speaks of the numerous decora¬ 
tions worn by the Atchison girl. It says 
that she wears a yellow ribbon because she 
is a suffragist, purple for the King’s Daugh¬ 
ters, blue for prohibition, and white for the 
White Cross Legion. Societies for all sorts 
of improvement, mental, moral and physi¬ 
cal, seem greatly to occupy feminine atten¬ 
tion in Kansas. 
* 
♦ * 
ONE is often at a loss in mendiug a much- 
prized piece of china when- it is broken into 
several pieces which will not stay in po¬ 
sition while drying. A writer in Harper’s 
Bazar gives a very clever expedient for 
such difficulties. The idea originated with 
the possessor of a set of quaint little butter 
dishes, one of which was broken into five 
pieces. Every attempt to keep the pieces 
together until the cement hardened proved 
a failure. At last a bright idea struck the 
puzzled housekeeper. She took a large 
saucer, greased it with lard, and then mix¬ 
ing plaster-of-Paris and water to a thick 
cream she nearly filled the saucer with it. 
Soon it hardened to the consistency of put¬ 
ty. She then greased the convex side of an 
unbroken butter plate with lard, and press¬ 
ed it into the plaster even with the upper 
rim of the plate. When the plaster had 
hardened still more she removed the plate, 
and there was an exact mould of it. Both 
saucer and plate were greased so that the 
plaster should not adhere. She then put 
cement on the pieces of the broken plate 
and fitted them into the mould, which held 
them firmly in place. The cement hard¬ 
ened, making a very creditable job. This 
idea will be found very useful in mending 
badly-broken pieces of china. 
“WANTED: A YOUNG WOMAN OF 
GOOD ADDRESS.” 
B ESIDES being an unappropriated 
blessing, I am a young woman of 
good address, to whom the advertisement 
quoted above might be supposed to apply. 
Like a traditional beau sabreur, all the 
world is mine oyster—but, alas ! I’ve only a 
feeble pen to open it. Many struggles with 
the metaphorical but refractory oyster give 
the impression that an agreeable personal¬ 
ity only is the feeblest tool one can possess, 
and yet it is the only one with which many 
women are furnished. We who belong to 
the great untrained are ready enough to do 
something —but what? Country girls of 
all classes—I am one of them myself, push¬ 
ing along with pen and needle, both excel¬ 
lent tools for mediocrity to starve by. A 
well-trained woman with a specialty has 
little reason to fear starvation, unless the 
three grim spinners bear a grudge against 
her. The army of unfortunates is made up 
of the foolish virgins, who drift carelessly 
through school, acquiring a varied fund of 
useless information, and then dance 
through the first years of long skirts in 
daily expectation of the fairy prmce. 
Of course, we all feel sure mentally that 
we shall marry ; we may have to struggle 
along for a few years, but some man of 
keen discrimination must finally realize 
our feminine perfections. In the mean 
time we must work, and herein lies the 
burden of our woes. 
Most of us are ambitious, like the woman 
who recently wrote of her struggles to 
provide flounced petticoats and evening 
gowns on an income of nothing certain a 
year; though, to tell the truth, one has a 
haunting suspicion that if Thackeray had 
met this ingenious dame he would have 
given her a chapter to herself—in the 
“Book of Snobs.” As a natural outcome 
of our ambitions, we don’t want to drag 
on a restricted existence, subject to the rich 
man’s contumely and the rich woman’s un¬ 
attainable bonnets. So we must go to a 
wider field—wider, indeed, in that it gives 
us more scope for drudgery. 
The average young woman who possesses 
a home, but whose pocket-money must be 
represented by a minus sign, is always on 
the lookout for some means of adding to 
her income. So she eagerly scans the pa¬ 
pers for advertisements of work to be done 
at home. She may find plenty of them— 
embroidery, knitting, crochet-work, and 
they all come to the same thing in the end 
—so much to be paid for “instructions,” 
and so little for work, with sundry deduc¬ 
tions for error. The advertiser is usually a 
man, who knows as much of crochet-work 
as he does of cuneiform hieroglyphics, but 
his spider-web is always well stocked with 
silly flies. Of course there are some legiti¬ 
mate concerns, where a woman without 
other means of support—God help her !— 
may make as much as the sewing women 
who do shop work. 
An advertisement for “a young woman 
of good address; previous business knowl¬ 
edge unnecessary,” usually means a can¬ 
vasser of some sort. It may be for some 
article of women’s or children’s gear, or 
the latest invention to revolutionize kitchen 
work,or it may be some entirely superfluous 
publication. In any case the experience is 
similar. The palpitating young woman 
climbs a lofty range of stairs suggesting 
Avernus by their difficulty of ascent. She 
enters the office, where she is abstractedly 
welcomed by its presiding genius, whose 
flow of language suggests that he is a re¬ 
formed book agent in disguise. If induced 
by this oratory to make a trial of the work, 
the applicant pays a moderate deposit on 
the samples she takes, and listens with high 
hopes to the ex-agent’s stories of successful 
canvassers. He tells how Miss Blank 
makes 40 dollars a week and Mrs. Dash 
twice as much, and how Mesdames Blank 
and Dash regard the canvasser’s life as the 
happiest lot on earth. The young woman 
who has good address but no business 
knowledge tries the work; if she is a born 
canvasser she sticks to it, and comes in time 
to regard it with the tolerant semi-liking 
we usually extend to our perfunctory 
breadwinning. If not, she takes a few re¬ 
buffs, and then returns her samples to the 
ex-agent, who is not nearly so entertaining 
on the second interview, and whose courtesy 
is distinctly strained when a request is 
made for the deposit. Doubtless there are 
women who make a good living as canvass¬ 
ers, but these fortunate sisters have the 
ability to make a living at anything they 
undertake. 
Having tried these little outlets, the 
would-be breadwinner—no, not breadwin¬ 
ner—the foolish virgin settles down in her 
nest and spins cobwebs, like Mademoiselle 
Arachne. Her cobwebs may take the com¬ 
paratively harmless form of art embroid¬ 
ery, but there is always danger of the lit¬ 
erary fever. Every one writes nowadays, 
and aimless girls with no technical educa¬ 
tion and a certain amount of bookishness 
are very apt to drop into literature, much 
as Silas Wegg dropped into poetry. With 
most of them literature means poetry—or 
rather verse. The humble person who now 
addresses you speaks with feeling here. 
My first literary venture took the form of 
verse, and when that ill-freighted argosy 
returned, “ declined with thanks,” I 
thought that heartless editor was a lineal 
descendant of the reviewer who murdered 
Keats. Now I should like to publicly 
thank that noble man, in that he refrained 
from crucifying me in print as the writer 
of such ineffably feeble verselets. But we 
don’t all look at it from this high moral 
standpoint. The return of a pet manu¬ 
script accompanied by that cold-blooded 
printed slip we all know so well, is usually 
the cause of heart-rending pangs, unless we 
are hardened to the point where we simply 
re-write the unappreciated infant of our 
fancy, and send it to try the soul of some 
other editor. Rejected manuscripts form a 
common ground whereon all writers meet; 
it is a professional incident falling on the 
just and unjust alike. 
Since every one who knows anything, 
and many who do not, inform us that the 
writer’s lot is not a happy one, it is hardly 
likely that a young woman who has failed 
at occupations less exacting should acquire 
ease by her pen. A good many of us have 
tried it, but as the Dowager Mrs. Gowau 
says, “it never does.” A few little stories, 
perhaps, in those literary periodicals which 
talk superbly about encouraging budding 
genius, but which, viewed from a vulgar 
material standpoint, are exceedingly “poor 
pay” ; a few “ Hints to Mothers” or ‘ Talks 
to Graduates” in some domestic publica¬ 
tions, and the slenderly-armed aspirant is 
finished. 
To come down to common sense, a girl 
who is no more equipped for bread-win¬ 
ning than a soft-shelled crab, is entirely out 
of place in this competitive period. She 
has no means of livelihood except marry¬ 
ing—fortunately for us, and unfortunately 
for them, a great many men regard help¬ 
lessness as true womanliness, so the inca- 
pables have quite as good a matrimonial 
oppoi-tunity as their more helpful sisters. 
But this does not obviate the absolute 
necessity for every woman to master a 
trade or profession, even where circum¬ 
stances seem to reuder it needless. 
Perhaps the industrial millennium would 
arrive sooner if we did not all seek so anx¬ 
iously for “ genteel ” employments. Some 
of us certainly would be better off if we 
gave up poor clerical work, and feeble scrib¬ 
bling, and ineffective teaching to cook and 
sweep and sew. We might do good work 
in such capacities, but such is the inconsis¬ 
tency of human nature that we don’t want 
to. Besant is right in thinking that few 
women care to work except for love. But 
sooner or later everything must find its 
level—even the women who advertise for 
“ any employment not menial.” 
What do you expect to do, most patient 
reader, when this social revolution comes ? 
This didactic writer may wield broom and 
duster as my lady’s chambermaid—per- 
chance may wear cap and apron, as the cus¬ 
todian of well-fed olive branches in Bryant 
Park or Madison Square. COTTAGE maid. 
