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2 FIELWtftRPEN CAPONS. When a Capon Is at Its Best —Some of th Various Advantages of Caponizing. Those who hatched chickens in Marcl and April will soon have a lot of cocker els of sufficient size to caponize, and ir regard to these, George Q. Dow, recog nized authority, tells in the New Yorl- World that the sooner they are per formed upon after reaching the size o) 2’ 2 pounds the longer time they wil. have to make their growth for the wintei and spring markets. Mr. Dow also ex presses himself as follows upon the sub ject of capons: A capon to be at its best should reallj be allowed to live for a year or fourteer months. The first eight months of theii lives are devoted to building up a large frame or body, which they will finish ofl and decorate in fine shape with delicious meat if for the following four months they are permitted to live. I disposed of all my capons early the past season (in February) simply because I needed the room for one thing, and another was that my customers demanded them, and still another reason was, I needed the money which they brought. However. I should not have done so had I not been offered a very high price, which I should have been foolish to decline. Had Inc particular market for them it would have been much better for me to have kept them until April, for I notice that the market price for capons tended up ward, and they were quoted at twenty four to twenty-six cents a pound in April and- early May, while chickens could be bought for fifteen cents and in some cases less. Besides the profit there is in it there are several other great ad vantages. You will get rid of a lot of cockerels that are running around both ering the hens and other birds and fight ing with each other from morning till night, .pausing them to lose their flesh faster than you can put it on and eating far more than any capon. After being caponized they become very docile and quiet—lose all then fighting propensities, pay no attention to the hens and pullets, lie around, take life easy and seem to enjoy perfect con tentment. As they do not care to run all over creation and lose all desire foi companionship of the other sex they be gin to grow very rapidly, and one will notice this remarkable change in them in a week after performing the opera tion. Everything they eat and drink goes to forming their frame and flesh. These are not the ideas of an enthusiast on the subject, but simply the experi ence of one who has been at it for a num ber of years and knows what he is writ ing about —not theory, but plain North. American facts. Try it, my friends, and see for yourselves, and if every capon you raise doesn’t bring you more than double what you get for a cockerel there must be something wrong about you, certainly not with the capon. Experiments with Potatoes. In an experiment at the Utah station, in which whole tubers, halves, quarters and one eye and two eye cuttings were planted, the yield increased with the , amount of seed used, but it is reported doubtful whether pieces larger than three-quarters “will yield enough more to pay for the extra amount of seed re quired.” Pieces cut from the stem end of potatoes gave larger yields than those cut from the seed end. Experiments . with large and small potatoes for seed during two years have given inconclu sive results. Flat culture of potatoes gave much better results than ridge cul ture. The newer varieties most promis ing are Hoffman, Governor Rusk and Rural New Yorker No. 2. At the Maryland station varieties used in an experiment, in which large and small whole potatoes, two or three eye pieces and one eye pieces were planted, were Early Rose, New Queen, Dakota Red and Early Harbinger. The results of this and of two previous experiments indicated that the yield increases with the amount of seed, but that when large whole potatoes are used for seed there are very many small potatoes in the crop. The most profitable results were obtained when small whole potatoes were planted. Tile Drainage. The laying of draintile is now one feature or foundation of success in farm ing. The increase in the production of the soil is great. A correspondent in The New England Homestead reminds farmers that there are good and bad tile, as there is land of the best and inferior qualities. The best tile run from ten, twelve and fourteen dollars per 1,000 and upward, according to the size. The round tile are considered the best and largely used, although the square bot tom tile are sometimes laid. The 8-inch tile is the most used in the flat lands of Ohio, then the 4 and 5-inch sizes, and also larger. All tile should bo laid in angles across the land. The larger size tile are more frequently used at the end, the smaller sizes along the sides of the field. The conditions of eacli portion of the land must be under stood to intelligently lay the tile. Good Date Keeping Celery. Many gardeners do not know that the dwarf celery, that sells best in the fall, one of the best keepers until late in the spring, says The American Cultiva tor, Cold and absolute darkness are the requisites for late keeping. Comply with these conditions, and the celery can be kept until March in just as good con dition as it will bo in December, if no rot starts among it. If the rot gets in to any great extent, the sooner it is sold the better for the grower. Nine times out of ten the rot is the effect of too sud den a change from cold to warm weather either out of doors or in the celery house, and the other time, if the celery is free from rot when put in, it is the result of careless handling when put in the pit or houses. SELECTING SEED POTATOES. American Cultivator’s Advice in This Im portant Matter. Selecting good seed potatoes from this season's crop is the surest way to have a profitable yield next season. The more we plant potatoes the more we are im pressed with the great value of having good seed. So much depends upon this that it is risky to depend upon others for seed. It is a matter of experiment, and then it takes several experiments with poor crops before we are certain PEOPLE’S PARTY PAPER, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1892. where to get good potatoes. To get large, fine looking potatoes, that will sell readily in the market for the high est prices, it is quite essential that the seed should come from the very largest tubers that we dig from our fields. The value of selecting seed potatoes for home use has been made apparent on Long Island. Potatoes from that part of the country invariably sell foi more than those from any other state or locality. The gardeners there have selected their seed carefully foi many years. The result is that a type of potatoes has been formed which are of especial value. They are larger, fairer and more globular in shape than potatoes from any other section. The market gardeners there believe in the theory that the potato must be adapted to the particular soil in which it is grown by a number of years’ trial. In the course of time, if the seed from the crops is selected, a new type of potato is raised, and seed from these tubers planted on other soil would not do so well. To readers who have not already .se lected their seed potatoes it is advised that as far as possible potatoes for seed should be of average size and shape. In this way one soon gets about the same sized potatoes from the field. They not only average well in size, but also in shape. This is quite an important point in selling potatoes. They can all be put into the first assortment, and their simi larity of shape makes them attractive. Extremely large, crooked potatoes are not so desirable, as a rule, as the smaller but fair, regular and thin skinned ones. In selecting the seed this point should be remembered. Os course it is an ad vantage to select the largest, but they should all be of about the same type and shape. Winter Protection for Plants. The opinion sometimes expressed that hardy plants need no protection during winter is not shared in by persons who find increased crops where jjrotection is given. It is argued by some that the strawberry, for instance, is naturally as hardy as many other plants which re quire and receive no protection what ever, and so with the other cultivated plants, such as the grape, raspberry, etc. This is true to a certain extent, and if nothing further were looked for than the mere existence of a plant it would not greatly matter whether it received protection or not. But it is found in practice, says Mr. William Saunders, superintendent of gardens and grounds at Washington, that a proper degree of covering notably increases the crops of fruit, and it is well to keep in mind that the best varieties of our fruit bear ing plants have been far removed from the natural conditions of their ancestors and have acquired artificial'qualities, as it were, by careful cultivation, and ■which can only be maintained by con stant attention to their needs. If neg lected they will soon show the ordinary result of negligence, and it is only by giving all the judicious attention and care ■which the best experience suggests that they can develop their greatest profit and usefulness. But it is also a common observation that a good prac tice may be rendered nugatory by in judicious application. Asparagus Growing. Having'a special fondness for kspara*- gus, and having given the subject of its growth in a small way considerable at tention, a correspondent of the New York World has reached the following among other conclusions: One is that many as paragus beds, especially in cold and heavy soils, die out from rotting of the fleshy roots. While to a certain extent asparagus likes moisture, this is easily overdone when the growth is at a stand still. Asparagus in a state of nature grows in a sandy, well drained alluvial deposit. Now the point I wish to get at is that heavy mulching on a cold, heavy soil, in my opinion, only renders the soil more cold and sodden and the roots more liable to decay. Allowing the tops to re main on throughout the winter is a slov enly method, and besides it prevents the frost and air from having free access to sweeten the surface soil. I make a practice of cutting the tops off close with the scythe and clearing them away as soon as thoroughly ripened. I have had good success in top dressing with decom posed manure and decayed garden ref use in equal parts. Crop Reports. The wheat crop in Europe is reported as better than in 1891 and worse than in 1890. The cotton crop is light, with short staple and generally fair quality. The agricultural department makes the average corn yield 22.4 bushels per acre, or an aggregate production of a little more than 1,600,000,000 bushels. The national statistician indicates the total wheat production to be about 500,- 000,000 bushels. The average yield of tobacco is less than last year. The average yield of hay is reported to be 1.17 tons per acre. This year Idaho and Montana lead in wheat with crops of 22.5 and 22 bushels per acre, respectively, Colorado follow ing with 19.1 and Washington with 18.4 bushels. The great wheat fields of the northwest—the two Dakotas—drop to 12.5 bushels. Kansas is reckoned at 17 bushels, Illinois and Michigan at 14.7, Pennsylvania at 14.4, New York at 14.3, Indiana at 14, Ohio at 13.2, California at 12.8, Missouri at 11.1 and lowa at 11.5. Just So. Some of the Democratic papers have just waked up and are “deeply regretful of the indignities committed upon Gen eral Weaver and the ladies who accom panied him in his political campaign in the south.” It reminds one of the story of the Irishman and the bulL Pat saw the bull coming, but before he could get out of the way the bull had hoisted him high on his horns and tossed him over the fence. Pat looked back and saw the bull pawing and bowing his head. He remarked: “Oh, yes; you axe very perlite and sorry, no doubt. But you did it a-purpose, and you know it.” Democrats, like Pat’s bull, are in condi tion now “to be very sorry and polite’’ to General Weaver. But, all the same, they threw eggs on purpose.—Chicago IntAT Ocean. There is no better, safer friend of the interests of capital in this country than Mr. Cleveland, and every millionaire knows it, and not one of them will lose an hour’s sleep over his election. —New Nation. . . „ THE BEES. How Best to Prepare Them for Winter ing; Over. The bees need weeding out in the fall of the year as ■well as the poultry and stock. For the highest profit in bee keeping the smallest number of bees should be wintered consistent with good management. Bees that are wintered properly require a great deal of care and feeding. A weak colony will often die for lack of warmth, and it is better in the fall to join two or three such small colonies in one. They can be wintered better in this condition, and they do bet ter in the hive. Overcrowding must be avoided, but then too few in the hive must also be guarded against. The mis take of many is to carry more bees through the winter than they can actu ally attend to, and instead of making more profit from such a number of col onies they actually make less. Poorly wintered, the bees die in numbers, and another season the numbers will be dec imated more than if less had been kept. Unprofitable colonies should be done away with. Facilities should be pro vided for those that are to be kept. Hives, sections, foundations and all other needful things should be obtained before cold weather comes, and an ex act estimate should bo made of how many can be wintered in the cellar or outside. It does not pay to starve the bees, and syrup of granulated sugar and water should be provided in sufficient time and quantity to keep the bees in good health. The amount of sugar needed for this purpose is often quite an item in the beekeeper’s expenses, and every pound thus used should be made of value. The wintering must be done gradually. The hives should be protected more and more as the season advances. The fall flowers gradually grow less in number, and bees are unable to find sufficient to eat. The comb honey will then' often be consumed if they are not watched. If more bees than there is actually honey to feed in the neighboring woods and fields, starvation will stare the bees in the face in the fall. More food will then have to be doled out than will ever be paid for by the honey. The number must be reduced at once before another honey season arrives.' Even if wintered in the bee cellar the hives should be kept out of doors until very late in the season. The bees do better when they are not shut up in some artificial place where the surround ings are gloomy and close. Sufficient protection can be given with straw until the middle of December.’ If the hives are situated in a sunny place and pro tected somewhat by trees or the barn, the little inmates do better than if win tered in protected hives out of doors. During warm midwinter days then they •will come out and take a fly around to air themselves and stretch their cramped limbs. This is of great value to them, for it prevents often foul brood and filthiness in the hive. One cannot be too careful in this respect, for it influ ences the bees all through the honey season, often contaminating the honey itself. Wintering in cellars has a tend ency to breed disease and dirt unless the owner is very careful. —Helen Whar burdon in American Cultivator.* Beef and t I do not believe any stockman can maintain a herd of beef cattle in fme form for axi£ qbntintied period unless a reasonable amount of succulent feed of some kind is provided for his animals during the long winter months. Where dry feed only is available stock will never show that thrifty, healthy appear ance made possible by the addition of some moist food. Oilmeal, to be sure, will help very materially, but it is an expensive food, very fattening in its na ture, and only a little can be used suc cessfully with breeding stock. Cooked feed, too, will produce practically the same results as succulent feed, but the cost of preparation makes it more ex pensive than silage or roots. Practically, therefore, succulent feed of some kind is a necessity with fine breeding stock, and the choice narrows down in most cases to roots and silage. Cheap storage can be provided for roots, and where money is scarce I would ad vise growing them until one is in condi tion to construct a silo without seriously feeling its expense. A limited use of silage for breeding stock of the beef breeds —Shorthorns and others ■— will prove extremely helpful in keeping the animals in winter time in that grassy condition so satisfactory to the eye of the stockman. Silage fed animals shed their coats early and will be in fine sale condition earlier in the springtime than if fed on dry grain—another point of considerable advantage.—Professor Henry in Breeder’s Gazette. Dive Stock Points. The Gold Spangled Hamburgs are ex ceeding handsome fowls. For persons who want ornamental chickens nothing is better. They are feathered in the breast like an English cock pheasant. Besides being so handsome, they are good layers and their meat is first class. They are of medium size. Some farmers have succeeded well with corn ensilage for breeding ewes. They have also been able to raise lambs on it with profit. Now that the millionaire Vice Presi dent Morton is in the incubator business, and makes no chicken bones of the fact, perhaps those who sneered at ex-Presi dent Hayes because ho found his pleas ure in fancy fowl breeding may cease their jibes. It is much better to raise good chickens than to wrestle with bad politicians. If you want late winter broilers, set your incubators going in November, or set your hens, if you prefer raising the broilers in that way. When it is time to take the pigs away from the sow, stop giving sloppy food and roots that her milk may dry up. It is better to begin this as soon as the pigs have learned to drink milk at the trough. They should have a trough so arranged that the sow cannot get to it, and sweet milk should be given, milk warm at Ilist. A Use for Worn Stockings. Very pretty little jackets for babies can be made from the legs of silk and woolen stocking when the feet are worn out. The stitches that confine the legs are carefully picked out and the legs joined together ■ down the back of the jacket. The sleeves are cut from the narrower parts and sewed in. The jacket is then edged around with a scalloped edge of worsted or knitting silk, which is started by drawing a single cro chet through the edge of the material. A cord and tassel made from the same is run through the neck.—Household. ~ THE DAIRY THE CREAMERY DAIRYMEN. How to Take Care of Milk for Butter Making. The cows should be properly fed the best and most wholesome food on the ‘‘irm. They should not be allowed to drink out of any slough or stagnant pool of water, but should be given as pure water as you use for domestic purposes. Their surroundings should be sweet and clean, and the milkers should be neat in drawing the milk from the cows. The milk utensils, such as pails, strainers, cans, etc., should be of tin. They should be washed out in hot water in which some salsoda has been dissolved, then scalded and set out of doors to air. The milk should be thoroughly cooled and aerated as soon as drawn from the cow, and morning’s milk should never be strained in with the night’s milk until it is perfectly cool. The milk should be kept in the com mon setting cans, set in a tank of cold water until just before the collector calls for it; then empty the milk into the delivery cans and place on a platform convenient for the driver. This is for your own interest as well as ours, for the earlier the milk gets to the factory the better shape it will be in, and the skimmilk will be sent back to the farm better than it would be otherwise. The skimmilk should be emptied out of the delivery cans as soon as returned from the factory, and the cans and covers washed and placed bottom side up on a rack out of doors to air until the next time. Do not send any sour, tainted, frozen or impure milk of any kind-to the factory, or any milk from an un healthy cow, but send us such milk as you would use in tea or coffee, or off which you would take cream for straw berries or table use. No other will Jnake fine butter.—lowa Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin. A Model Creamery. The walls of the building contain two dead air spaces, with flues in the outer space to conduct off the direct and re flected heat from the sun in summer, but to be closed in winter. The water tank is made of metal and is hung overhead in the refrigerator, and the water remains cold and sweet for washing the butter. The icebox is at one end, with top and bottom circu lation of air through it and the “cold room.” There are two doors and two weigh cans for receiving milk, and the skimmilk is conducted above the wagon. The heat and dust from the boiler and engine room are cut off from the work room with good, substantial doors and partitions, and the steam pipes and ex haust pipes and flues, especially if steam separators are used, are covered with a good nonconductor of heat or placed in wooden boxes. If there is a full supply of hands and a proper division of labor the milk is al lowed to gravitate from the wagon to the weigh can, to the separator, to the cream vat, to the churn, and to the buttermilk tank, dispensing with pumps, but the lay of the land and the climbing capacity of the butter maker must be taken into consideration. Creamery Journal. Question and Answer. Which is the best cow for batter—one that gives twenty-five pounds of milk per day, 6 per cont. butter fat, or one that gives fifty pounds of milk, 3 per cent, butter fat? Which is the ' best cow for cheese? More butter can be made from twen ty-five pounds of milk containing 6 per cent, fat than from fifty pounds contain ing only 3 per cent., because the losses in creaming and churning will be less. Which is the better cow for butter will depend very largely upon the way in which they hold out in giving milk. The probabilities are that the milk from the fifty pound cow would make the most cheese, but of a quality not quite up to what so called full cream cheese ought to be.—Hoard’s Dairyman. Dairy and Creamery. The individual who has a hillside with a spring upon the hill above it has just the place which nature had in mind for a first class creamery when she built that spring there. If the spring is one that does not dry out, the water can ba collected in a reservoir and used for a dozen different purposes. If it is cold enough the cans of milk can be plunged into it, or a cement milkroom can be built under the hillside creamery and the milk kept there. It can be utilized as a water power to run the cream sep arator, the test machine, the churn and butter worker, besides cutting feed and sawing wood if necessary. It will be an excellent plan, where you make butter to sell directly to hotels, restaurants or fancy groceries, to have a print made with the particular name of the buyer upon it. A fine rep utation for both butter maker and dealer might be established in that way. Suppose, for instance, a hotel named the Montrose House buys your fine butter. The article might be turned out in pound prints with some pretty design upon the face and the word “Montrose” printed handsomely beneath. Or if a grocer named—let us say Smith—wanted to es tablish a name for a first class and re liable brand of butter, he could get the article made from a producer whom he could swear by and then ask the pro lucer to put it into pound rolls, each bearing the trademark “Smith” printed s?pon its face. Here is an idea worth trying. The first thing to do in building up a model dairy is to get rid of your poor cows. Then get a pure bred bull of a milk or butter family, whichever you wish to produce. If you are a young man or woman and expect to make your living on a farm, go to your state dairy school this winter and graduate. Frost bitten grass is not calculated to improve the digestion or the milk of" cows. Wasted Effort. If one-half the time effort and money that have been worse than wasted on strikes during the past ten years had been expended in the education and or ganization of the workers of the coun try into an independent political party such legislation would have been se cured long ago as would have removed all cause for strikes. Organized laboring men, with half a million votes of their own and the assist ance of unorganized labor, can dictate any policy they desire, but so long $s they <TivideSly support “rival” factions, while the corporations and trusts have no politics except what adds‘>o their profits, just that long may they expect their efforts to end in defeat and enslave ment.—Jacksonville Advocate. The Peer of Any Living' American. General Weaver’s magnificent canvass of the country in behalf of free silver coinage and the rights of the people will ever remain the great prominent feature of the presidential campaign of 1892. In heart and brain and in every element which goes to make up a great leader General James B. Weaver is the peer of any living American.—Rocky Mountain A Home Broken Up. There is nothing sadder in life than the : dissolution of homesand the disintegration of families. There are houses where we have been made welcome, whose hospital ity is a green oasis in the desert of com monplace life. We accept the good gifts they offer us as we accept the sunshine and the air, as if we expected them to endure always. Suddenly death or misfortune copies, and the home that opened its doors to us vanishes as utterly out of our reach as if it had never existed. The charming hostess becomes a care worn, anxious woman, bereft of the lux uries and the comforts that she so gener ously shared with others, and is a nomad in the land where she once had an abiding ; place. Her sons leave her and establish families of their own. Her daughters do likewise or turn their energies to thoughts of earning a livelihood and - caring for the mother, who has never known before a privation or an ungratified wish. There is none of us who cannot recall these sad ex periences, and, after all, they are the real sorrows of life.. For a home once broken up, its hearth fires extinguished, its joy quenched, its common experiences of grief and pain end ed, the ruin is unalterable. No earthly power can restore its completeness, rekin dle the flame or reopen the sealed book upon which destiny has laid its forbidding hand. —Chicago Inter Ocean. For Mosquito Hites. It amuses me to hear so many remedies suggested for the bites of the mosquito and so many devices mentioned for keep ing the insects out of the way, even when every window and door in the house is protected by a screen. In frontier dis tricts, where mosquito bars and screens are alike unknown, various plans are adopted to keep off the insect pests, and those who live in houses could adopt any one of them with far greater certainty of success than the unfortunate man who has to sleep in the open without a cover of any description. No mosquito will come within smelling distance of oil of cloves, and a few drops on the pillow or coverlet will keep the sleeper as safe from annoyance as a dozen thick nesses of netting. The precaution is spe cially desirable in the case of children, es pecially as the mosquito is not by any means the only insect that has a decided objection to the perfume.—St. Louis Globe- Democrat. Giggling Is Not Laughing. Women very generally neglect a very powerful weapon of offense and defense placed at their command by nature. A woman’s laugh, if intelligently and skill fully used, can wither a man in his tracks or elevate him to the seventh heaven of happiness. Several causes have contributed to the decadence of woman’s laughter. The chief one perhaps is the modern habit of dress ing. Full, free laughter depends upon a perfect development and exercise of the respiratory muscles. Confined as these are by steel and whalebone laughter be comes an impossibility. With a loss of the art of laughing comes a loss of the sense of humor. When the expjession of any of the senses becomes difficult the sense itself dwindles. Do not mistake giggling for laughter.—Philadel phia Times. Miss Dodge Dislikes Pliilanthropliy. Miss Grace Dodge, who is so well known in connection with the various organiza tions of working girls in New York, is a woman of wealth and culture. She lives in a beautiful home on Madison avenue. More than that, she keeps house in addi tion to all her oujtside work. Miss Dodge says: “I don’t think a woman can be a true woman if she has no home duties. “I hate that word ‘philanthrophy,’ ’’.she said in response to some remark about her work. “In the first place, my work in my clubs is not philanthropic. It is simply part of my social life. A woman was talk ing to me the other day, and she said that she was ‘in thirty charities.’ Ido not feel that way. I’m not ‘in’ any ‘charity.’ I belong to several girls’ clubs, and I attend them like any other member.” —New York Recorder. Beautiful Hands. Not only ladies should have pretty hands —a rough, untidy pair of hands is just as unnecessary for a man to have as a wom an—beautiful white hands very many can have if nature has been kind enough to be stow upon them fair skins. All may have neat looking, smooth hands. A lemon, some oatmeal, palm oil soap and tepid water and a few ounces of glycerin will be all sufficient to-accomplish the desired re sult. After the hands are washed clean in tha water, to which has been added a table spoonful of oatmeal and a teaspeonful of glycerin, and the palm oil soap freely used, rub over the wet hands the lemon juice; apply it especially well about the nails, for it hardens the skin and prevents the form ation of hangnails.—St. Louis Republic. Well Known Women Musicians. Among the brilliant pianists who are also composers are Mrs. Raymond and Mrs. Place. Miss Morris, Miss Hoyt and the daughter of Mrs. Cruger Pell are un usually superior pianists. Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner is an accomplished player, and the most charming room in her co lonial home at Hartford is the music room, with its grand piano and many curious souvenirs from foreign lands. —New York Press. An Inexpensive Easy Chair. The steamer chair is just beginning to be appreciated for house use. For those who live in flats or small rooms it is especially valuable as a lounging place, as it can he put out of the way after the rest hour is over. When that is not necessary it may be made into an easy chair rich enough for the average sitting room by having cush ions for both back and seat made of cordu roy, mohair, plush or velours.—New York Post. To Keep the Waist Down. Does the point at the back of your waist persist in curling up when you sit in the car or even in an ordinary chair? If so sew two inches of black elastic on the under side, leaving it the least bit tig ‘er than the dress just over the whalebone' and see how it will b.ug the top of your skirt.—Exchange. Mrs. Millicent G. Fawcett is one of the most aggressive workers in England for the enlargement of women’s rights. Forks are placed to the left, knives to the right of the plate. Leave the spoon ia the saucer unless in actual use. In houses where strict order prevails ths friction of the kitchen work is never felt beyond itsjvall|t, , t v WOMEN WHO SELL TEA GENTLEWOMEN OF DISTINGUISHED BIRTH IN BUSINESS. In England Highborn Ladies Do Forfeit Their Social Position if They Engage in Trade—How the Ladies’ Tea Company of London Manages. A gentlewoman in search of an income furnishes a complex situation. Possessing the inherited belief that repose is her es sential element, she yet faces the necessity to act, so that vary extremes have met. The position is tragic, and none the less so that it is the result of an artificial training. It has been curiously observed of late that the English gentlewoman is more ready to go into trade than the American woman of breeding is. Tins may or may not be because of the greater certainty of social position here. When a woman in heriting a title runs a millinery shop she does not by her act forfeit her title or tha respect due to it, whereas with us social position in the fashionable world cannot La maintained without money, which H 8 woman keeps a shop obviously she is wit h out. However it is, English women of birth and culture have distinguished themselves in trade so far as to make the tendency quite worth remarking, and their ex perience worth the consideration of our own gently bred women who need to earn a living. With us women of advantages turn by choice to mental occupations, the school room being the great resource. In New York city alone there are numbers of lovely women, members of old families of generations of refinement, who, with the natural shrinking from trade given them by their training, are dragging out un satisfactory lives as teachers in private schools; they are screwed down in salary by the principals, on the plea of over supply of teachers, to scarcely enough to keep body and soul together. The attention of such women is called to the ventures of English women in trade, and especially to an interesting depart ment which I am about to describs. It really is worth our women’s while con sider whether the apparently superior gen tility of the teacher’s work is worth the sacrifice of an independent career anti pos sible accumulation of income. The venture of which I speak is a tea company controlled and operated by gen tlewomen. These ladies own one-fifth of a large estate in Ceylon, where they grow their own tea, and so do their own import ing without any middlemen. They do their own blending, packing, selling and all the drudgery incidental to the business. Their employees are a secretary and a waitress in the tasting room, both of whom are cultivated women. The company is a limited one of seven two of whom act as manag ing directors. These directors have mas tered every detail -of the business with a thoroughness parallel to that required of a nurse in a training school, and you can see them in the packing room of the establish ment enveloped in big aprons and caps doing up their own packages—not an easy matter folding a. pound of tea into the reg ulation size pound papers! The tea will burst out and fly all over just when one seems to have captured it, and it requires much practice to do it expertly. The business of thecompany is conducted in a quiet suite of rooms, up two easy flights of stairs, in Bond street in the midst of the fashionable shopping district. There is a secretary’s office, a packing and sell ing room and a tasting room. Their sales, which are all retail, are made here to pur chasers who come in, and also throughout the United Kingdom by means of agents, who are ladies, and to whom.they give a high commission. Indeed, the most fact concerning the company is that though* it has been in operation but four months it now employs sixty of these agents and is all but paying its expenses—a flourishing condition of affairs that indicates good management and a profitable market for tea. Their special brand is the Ceylon raised by themselves, but they also blend other teas called for by the market. There are as many flavors as there Are tastes for tea— a pinch more of Souchong for one; a soup con of Hyson for another—the variation is endless. Blending requires patience and experience, and is a skilled work in itself, but it has been accomplished by the ladies, and the result they have styled “The La dies’ Own Blend,” and numbered one, two, three, etc. A charming feature is the pretty parlors, where any intending customer may taste his tea before buying it—an advantage the ordinary grocer does not supply. This room is thrown open to the public for “afternoon .tea” at a small price a cup, with bread and butter. It is an odd and delightful ex perience to have in a public place your tray brought to you by a woman of cul ture. If your hand had gone into your pocket for a fee you draw it out again with disgust at yourself and the world of eating houses outside that encourages such degra dation, and you look with grateful pleasure at your waitress in her cap and apron and almost believe that Bellamy’s millennium has come. This, we reflect, is a gentlewoman wait ing on us for wages—doing it perfectly and doing it without affectation, as any trained servant would do. It shall be noted, however, that the pol icy of the company in employing only gentlewomen makes it easier to do such humble work. There is no contact with anything vulgar; the environment is al ways refined. The agents employed by the company are residents in towns and cities through out the kingdom. They number among them a woman with a title, another who is an honorable, and many clergymen’s wives. These ladies do not solicit from door to door, but they mention the matter to their friends who are willing to try the tea, and these mention it to others, and when such orders are sent in to the tea company they are accompanied by the • name of the agent, or else the agent sends the order with the customer’s address. A fashion with the agents also is to have tea tasting parties and invite all their friends and introduce them thus to the tea. I ask again, in these early days of wom en’s independent work, w’hy should not women find the easiest road through trade? Nations have traveled this way, and intel lectual life has been the resulting crown. It is the history of men—why not of wom en?—London Cor. Chicago News-Record. A Graceful Definition of a Mature Maiden. The Boston Transcript thus gracefully defines maiden ladies: “The undelivered packages at the express offioe. They were originally intended for somebody, but the parties to whom they were addressed have never appeared, or else they had the wrong address, or the address somehow got ob literated. Often very valuable parcels, which would have given great joy if they had been delivered to the proper consignee/’ Mouth Breathing and Deafness. From the condition of a “mouth breather” it is but a short step to one of two results— more often both, deafness and that pecul iarly stupid, sleepy, inane, foolish expres sion of countenance so characteristic of the “mouth breather.” To parents who have the welfare of their children at heart such a warning as this should be of sacred importance. As soon as the child gives evidence of a tendency to breathe constantly through its mouth just so soon should intelligent medical in vestigation be made of its nostrils, prefer ably by a proper specialist.—Dr. A. M. Fanning in Popular Spience Monthly.