1-46 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
and passed -upwards towards the ceiling, spreading 
them out towards the corners of the length of pa¬ 
per. The scissors are then run along at the junc¬ 
tion of the wall and ceiling, making a mark which 
can be easily seen, when the top of the paper is re¬ 
moved for a little distance, and it is cut off even 
and replaced. Then a soft cloth is gently passed 
downwards and the paper pressed against the wall 
to the bottom, where it is cut off as at the top. 
After a few lengths are laid, the operation will be¬ 
come easy, and if a room where the work is not 
very particular is commenced with, the best rooms 
may be attacked next. 
A Pot, Pan, and Kettle Scraper. 
A curious thing came by mail. It was a piece 
of galvanized iron, of about the size shown in the 
engraving, and had attached to it a label which 
read: “Pot, Pan, and Kettle Scraper. Please ac¬ 
cept, tvith the compliments of the season, from 
John Purbish, dealer in kitchen furnishing goods, 
stoves, etc., Main street, Brunswick, Me. Decem- 
POT AND PAN SCRAPER. 
her 25th, 1871.” It seems that the John aforesaid 
did not, as many stupid people do, go and patent 
a simple thing. He had tried the little scraper, 
found it good, had a lot made, and gave one to 
every holiday customer. The piece of sheet-iron 
is so shaped that it will meet all possible angles, 
and save no end of knives and spoons. If John 
does not scrape himself into the good graces of the 
people of Brunswick, it will not be his fault. Any 
one can make this scraper, and the lady who directs 
the kitchen destinies of the writer hereof says: 
“First-rate; I wish I had had it before.” 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
“A Houseful of Girls who Cost so vert 
much more tuan they Come to.” —My text may 
be found in the February number of the Agricul¬ 
turist, , at the end of an article entitled, “ Can Farm¬ 
ing Pay such Taxes?” Girls of the description 
given in that article do not read the Household 
columns of this paper, I suppose. So we (sensible 
ones) may talk the matter over among ourselves. 
It is doubtful whether the silly girls are most to 
blame for their general good-for-nothingness. They 
never deliberately consented to be born and bred 
to such a disgraceful state of things. They have 
been unfortunate indeed in their inheritance of 
mental and moral traits, and in their bringing up, 
if, having reached adult years, reasonable persua¬ 
sion will not induce them to be reasonable in their 
conduct. Perhaps they are unfortunate in being 
born and brought up before general society—of 
which you and I are members—has grown sensible 
in its opinions and practices. 
I don’t profess to know what taxes farming can 
afford; but I think we can none of us afford to have 
the complaint about the extravagance and indolence 
of the “ girl of the period ” kept up much longer. 
What can we do toward putting an end to it? 
Our children, of both sexes, should be diligently 
trained to take care of themselves, and to make 
themselves useful to others. Taking care of them¬ 
selves means earning their own living, and it means 
more. It means a practical acquaintance with 
household labor, and the ability to take care of 
one’s own clothing. It is absurd for each person 
in a family to do the cooking, washing, and sewing 
for herself or himself apart from the general cook¬ 
ing and washing. A division of labor is best for 
pleasure and for profit; but no boy or girl gets a com¬ 
plete outfit for life who docs not get some good 
domestic training. Such knowledge may prove 
very useful in an emergency, though not made 
of daily use by the circumstances of one’s life. 
More important than any actual knowledge of 
the details of labor, is the habit of industry , and a 
disposition to be of use. So all that we do to encou¬ 
rage healthy activity and kind regard for others in 
our children, tends to prevent their growing up to 
be idle spendthrifts. Let the little girls be active 
as children, if you would have them become active 
women. Play as well as work—and sometimes 
more than work—tends to this end. Anything but 
to make children “keep still” long at a time. 
Our boys ancLgirls should be ashamed to be de¬ 
pendent upon their parents after they are able to 
support themselves. But it is our duty, as their 
guardians, to give them as thorough and broad an 
education as wc can; and this should include a 
knowledge of some business which may serve, in 
an emergency, as a plank between themselves and 
starvation. It is not the duty of every able-bodied 
person to earn money, but every one should find 
some way of being so useful to others as to gain 
right to the bread and butter that person cats. 
If little girls are dressed for show rather than 
for comfort, will they not be likely to grow up 
vain? If their mothers sit up late to tuck and 
braid their little frocks, why should they not con¬ 
tinue to toil early and late in order that their 
growm-up daughters may “shine” ? 
Let fathers take the whole family into their con¬ 
fidence as far as possible, and then the daughters 
will know the comparative value to the whole 
family of a silk dress "with “two hundred and 
twenty-five yards of trimming” for one of the 
girls, or a mowing machine for the father. Fathers 
who only draw their purse-strings tight and grow! 
when asked for money, with no kind explanations 
of their motives for refusal, get the name of being 
“stingy ” and “unkind.” 
It is idle to talk about our grandmothers, for we 
do not live in their day. It is natural enough for 
our girls to "wish to wear such garments as seem to 
them the most admired. So here comes in our 
duty as members of society, whether we have 
daughters or not, to use our influence toward mak¬ 
ing simplicity and common sense fashionable. 
Stove-Cloths. —I read a “premium essay” on 
housekeeping the other day, and then I went 
straight and made me some stove-cloths. Common 
holders have never given me much satisfaction for 
use about the stove and its furniture. These stove- 
cloths are long enough to reach from one end of 
the gem-pans to the other. “ My aunt’s ” were 
made of an old grain bag, and were finished with 
hems and loops or rings. As soon as one was 
soiled so as to be uncleanly to the touch, it was put 
with the dirty clothes, and a clean one put in its 
place. Such a cloth, hung conveniently near the 
stove, saves the cook’s apron some scorching and 
soiling, also some desecration of the dish-towels. 
A Terrestrial Globe. —The jolly St. Nick did a 
good thing by our family last Christmas. The wish 
for a good globe for the sake of the bairns had been 
breathed by the “united head” of this family, 
more than once, but we did not know as our wish 
had been overheard, and we were utterly surprised 
when one of Schoedler’s beautiful twelve-inch ter¬ 
restrial globes actually found its way into our 
family circle in holiday week. With all our "wish¬ 
ing we had never dreamed what a treasure it would 
really be. I believe wc old folks have learned more 
geography since that globe came than we ever 
learned before. As for the little ones, they have 
probably learned more than they would in many 
months of 8tudj r of geography in the old memoriz¬ 
ing way, and their first ideas will not be so erro¬ 
neous as mine were. I had been almost through 
Peter Parley’s First Geography, when I learned, to 
my astonishment, that I lived on the outside of the 
round world pictured in the book, and not shut up 
in the inside. I wonder what proportion of the 
readers of this page have a clear idea of the motions 
of the earth and their effects. 
The globe is full of suggestions for stories of the 
most profitable kind, and it provokes one to his¬ 
torical and scientific reading. The children’s most 
natural questions lead one on indefinitely — all 
about Columbus, the mariner’s compass. But it’s 
of no use to begin enumerating the topics sug¬ 
gested by the globe, for they seem endless. 
It is a beautiful ornament, too, and it strikes me 
that no parlor-library is quite furnished without 
one. Such globes should be used iu all our com¬ 
mon schools. There is no other method of teach¬ 
ing the most important part of geography with 
success. The maps are excellent, and of course 
they are much more correct in their proportions 
than any flat representation of the earth can be. 
-- • «■»- 1 
Butter Molds and Stamps. 
H. M. Taylor, Kansas, asks whether there are 
any molds made by which butter may be put up in 
pound or half-pound cakes for the market. We 
give on this page cuts of the usual forms of molds 
for this purpose. They are made of soft wood, as 
white-ask or soft maple, and are generally kept for 
sale at all country stores where willow-wave is sold. 
Fig. 1.— b utter-stamp. 
The manner of using them is as follows : When 
the butter is ready for making up, it is weighed 
out into the proper quantities, and each piece is 
worked in the butter-dish with the ladle into flat 
rouud cakes. These cakes are either pressed with 
the mold shown in fig. 1, or are made to go into 
the cup of the mold shown at fig. 2. Inside of 
the cup (fig. 2) is a mold with a handle which 
works through a hole in the upper part of 
Fig. 2.— BUTTER-MOLD. 
the cup. The cup is inverted on to the table, and 
when this handle is pressed down it forces the 
mold on to the butter, which is squeezed into a 
very neat ornamented cake. By pushing the handle 
and lifting the cup, the cake of butter is pushed 
out of the mold. This makes a very favorite mode 
of putting up fine butter for market, and is also 
well adapted for preparing butter for the table in 
houses where neatness of appearance is studied. 
The molds when iu use should be kept welted in 
cold water to prevent the butter from sticking. 
