A Talk with Boys.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 871, 9 November 1888, Page 19

A Talk with Boys.

Nowadays the American girl appears to me to be receiving an undue amount of advice, praise, and encouragement in print, while her oft-times worthy brother is quite neglected. Maybe yon will scoff at advice to boys coming from a woman, but I have boys of my own, and I somehow feel a 3 if a mother comes nearer to her boy’s heart than any other relation. I know somewhat of how a boy feels. He likes to have his impulses understood, and bis ambitions encouraged and directed by a sympathetic heart and head. I take it that the lads I am talking to are farmors’ sons. Perhaps soma of you don’t want to stay on tho farm. It may be that you so much despise fanning as that you may feel that you have no vocation for that pursuit. You liavo no money, very little education, and you don’t know exactly how to begin to raise yourself. Now there is oue tiling you can do without money’, without education, and without infiucuco. You can cultivate yourself. No, I don’t mean that you can study Latin, or higher mathematics by yourself, although even that has been done. I simply mean rhat you can cultivate your manners. You can make yourself an unaffected, frank, manly, respectable man. Some one calls manners ‘enamel on solid gold.? Your manners areas much of a study as any other accomplishment, and I willven’ turo to say that it goes further. A courteous bow, a pleasant, frank smile and a respectful reply never passes unnoticed where notice is worth anything. You can rise when a lady enters the room aud offer her a chair, remaining standing until she is seated. You can rise to open a door for a lady and bow kb gracefully as you know how when she passes through. Plome, let me whisper, is a good place to practice such little elegancies. If you begin to pay such manly attentions to your mother and sisters, you will perform them with tho greater ease in society. If you sit still in the only easy chair with year feet stretched out while your mother stands or uses a less comfortable onn ; if you osu 101 l at ease while she carries a hod of coal, or a bucket of water, you had better stay on the farm and live as much out of doors among the animals as you oan, for though you had the wealth of a Vanderbilt, and the garb of a Beau Bra mine], you would be no ornament to society. Learn first to be a gentleman, so that if you seek employment men will say ‘that lad is at least a gentleman.’ You don’t want books oh etiquette. Read the Bible, and it you follow just one

rule in that (the golden rule of ‘Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you ’)' yon will have pretty good manners. Rowland Hill said : ‘I do not think much of a man’s religion unless his cat and dog are the happier foY it,’ and just so your courtesy and gentleness?, if they spring from your heart, will make not only your father, mother and sisters happier, but even the dumb brutes around you. Good manners, like good words, cost so little and are worth so much, — -Alice Chittenden, Cal'.

EGYPTIAN CORN FOR FORAGE-

We have many times alluded to the value of Egyptian corn as a forage plant, and ae it is more and more in favour we may be excused for calling attention to it again. It is a positive pleasure to see the many patches of green these dry plains. The / are like an oasis in the desert, and when pastured down closely keep green and tender all summer long, although not a drop of rain may have descended since it. first made its appearance above the ground. These patches may be seen in all parts of the county, thus making it possible to keep in good condition much more stock than before it made its advent. The amount of stock kept need only be circumscribed by the number of acres iu corn—ten acres being usually sufficient for a farm of 160 acres. As it can be grown on fallowed ground for wheat it calls for no waste of land, and the seed being cheap renders it the cheapest and best, and we might say the only possible green pasture during our dry season on these plains. We have seen many such pastures this summer, and have seen it eaten down to the very ground, and then in a very few days after the stock was withdrawn it came up as vigorous as ever, and we have seen this repeated several times already this season. We think a good plan would be to have two fields of it, aud then alternate the stock upon them, when, we believe, both will thrive better. There is no question -of the success of this forage plant on the driest soil, but it will neither sprout nor grow well during cold weather. Thus the hot. weather in July gave it the first good start this season, while the cold weather in May and June was almost death to it.—Sutter County Farmer.