to lay up a supply of health with which to meet the coming years of study. They will soon make up the apparent loss of time when they do begin book studies. We, as parents, should be able to teach them to see

"Sermons in stones,

Books in running brooks,

And good in every thing."

Let us try to fill their little innocent minds so full of love for every living thing that there will be no room for cruelty, malice or spite. Let us be careful not to injure any thing in their presence as most children have some savagery in their nature which is easily developed.

As the child grows older, the parents' repsonsibility increases. After he reaches school age, he loses his simple babyhood, and takes up his battle with the world. He must learn to adapt himself to circumstances and oftentimes receives hard knocks in doing so. And happy is the mother who can be loving and sympathetic but impartial in her estimate of things. She must remember a child's view of things is likely to be distorted and hear both sides of a grievance before pronouncing judgment.

Give the children plenty of pleasure but also some daily task to perform. Enter into their sports and studies with them and teach them to think of father and mother as pleasant companions and of home as the most delightful spot on earth. Cultivate the habit of not seeing every little misdemeanor and try not to say "Don't" with every breath.

Teach them to read good books-biography, travel, history, and poetryand so fill their minds with good that there will be no room for evil.

Study a child's inclination and do not try to make a lawyer or a minister of him if he loves plants and animals better than books. "Do not spoil a good farmer to make a poor preacher."

Teach them, if you can, to shun evil because it is evil and not from fear of punishment. The responsibility of parents is great and yet in the end much must depend on the child himself. The time will come when he must meet evil face to face and decide his course for himself. If he has been taught self-reliance and control he will probably come out victorious, but alas! how many failures we see around us. We can only humbly and prayerfully strive to do the best we may and leave the rest unto a Higher Power, trusting to Him to direct our childrens' pathway toward nobleness.

PRUNING AND GRAFTING.

BY CYNTHIA PECK EMERY, NAPOLEON, OHIO.

[Read at the Farmers' Institute held at Grelton, Henry County, February 22 and 23, 1905.]

Pruning and grafting may by right be considered as much the privilege of the good housewife as of the horticulturist. Webster says "to prune is to cut off." The boy's definition for pruning was "taking off what was unnecessary;" when asked for a definition he said, "In warm weather I prune my coat," and for our purpose the boy's definition is quite satisfactory. We would say to the good housewife, "Come, let us reason together for a little and see if in our busy work-a-day life we may not be able to do some little pruning

by cutting off some things that may be considered, if not entirely unnecessary, of no primary importance."

The horticulturist in order to do any pruning must have the tree or shrub on which to work; the pruning hook, knife and shears with which to do the work, and in order to succeed must have some confidence in his ability and must know when and where the work should be done.

Now, to the average farmer's wife her work seems to have been handed down from time immemorial and seems to be "to make and to mend, to bake and to brew." Then as housework seems to be one tree we endeavor to prune, let us take as one chief instrument in our work-system. In the average home there are just about so may things to do, and usually but one pair of hands to do them. To do the most business with the least friction is one of the necessities. No business succeeds without some system. What school would be a success if allowed to continue with no system. How long could the government of any nation exist if no system of order was at its foundation. Or take, for instance, the war ships on our seas and oceans; what disastrous results would follow any advance made by then on an enemy if there was no one to command and a system of tactics. And system is just as essential on the farm or in the farmer's home. It is not the wise man that fills every hour with the known business, but he who leaves some margin for what may come aside from what is known to him.

So the busy housewife should not plan work for every hour but leave some margin for interrupted work-often there will come whole days when there is no time for anything but the unexpected work. Such days call for patience, and patience must be learned and lived and nowhere is it more essential than in the home. Scarcely a day passes that does not call for selfcontrol. At such times it may help to remember Milton's words, "They also serve who only stand and wait." The act of standing dissipates any idea of listlessness while waiting and shows a readiness for action.

I remember once hearing an old lady say that if you would make it a habit never to lay a thing down till it was in its proper place, a lot of time would be saved as well as a vast amount of worry. Now, as worry is one of the things we would like pruned out of our busy lives, this simple bit of advice is well worth accepting. See that a thing is in its proper place when it leaves your hand.

Worrying is one thing that is not even a necessity and still it may be hard to prune out. We may have some special object in view and worry for fear we may not see the consummation of our hopes. Instead of worrying how much better it would be if we could feel with Stevenson in his child's poem where the little child was casting his little leaf boats adrift on the bosom of the stream and says:

"Away down the river a hundred miles or more,
Other little children will bring my boats ashore."

so we too may rest assured if we do our best someone, it may be away down the stream of time, but someone will bring our boats ashore. So let us quit worrying. How glad we are that there are among us:

"Those who carry music in their heart,
Through dusky lane or crowded mart,

Plying their daily tasks with busier feet,

Because their secret souls a holier strain repeat."

In the typical New England home each pan is scrubbed as though it were a sin for tin not to shine. Saying nothing against this, spending so much time polishing kitchen utensils leaves less time for polishing the mind. which is of much greater importance.

Under some such mistaken sense of duty many a busy wife and mother, whose brain is bright and active, spends more time polishing things which are only temporary, leaving less time for the care of her mind, and in consequence the time soon comes when she fails to be a companion for that much loved son or daughter. In direct opposition of this, one busy mother I know studied at home to keep pace with her child away at school, while another, just as busy, has taken up the study of music to be more in sympathy with a loved son.

In order to do any grafting we must be willing to prune and so have space for the new shoot; or, in other words, we must be willing to do less in one direction in order to do more in some other.

We have all heard from our parents or grandparents stories of how much more simply our forefathers lived than we now do, and of how much more simply they were clothed, and a noted lecturer now is trying to tell us how to live the simple life, or how to live life more simply. One of his ideas in particular is the privilege of each one to live his own life in accord with his own circumstances, which seems to me may be construed into "do not feel compelled to do a thing simply because your next door neighbor does it." If we would have time to graft something into our lives which is not already there, why not make our housework more simple, cull out some things we do not really need to do, for example, do less pie and cake baking, using fruit more, take less time for the ironing, fold some of the clean clothes as they come from the line, and see if the precious home folk will not vote for a few more wrinkles in the clean clothes and a few less in the face of the homekeeper.

The lot of the average farmer's wife is without question a very busy one, but after all may she not be envied by her sisters? I sometimes wonder if the wife of a great business man is ever a really happy one. A man wins tremendous success in business only by making it the one great passion of his life, and his wife must have only secondary place, while on the farm the interest of the farmer and the farmer's wife are one.

Another tree the busy mother may be called upon to prune may be the mind of the children of her home, and I think all will agree with me that to the mother is intrusted a great measure of the training of this, the tenderest product of the home. Nothing else holds so large a possibility for weal or woe, and they are bound to be a determined factor in the home and community. How then best to prune or graft is the question.

A story is told of an old lady's advice to two anxious mothers-one, the mother of the bad little girl who was always torn in temper as well as raiment, and the other the mother of the docile, obedient little girl whose face and disposition were always serene. To the mother of the tempestuous little girl she suggests pruning, saying, "Can you not see that all this aggressiveness is only too much leaf? It may mean leadership some day, but needs pruning now, and your little girl who gets so angry must be taught self-control. You must have the seeing eye, the understanding heart, as only the seeing eye and the understanding heart will be able to see beyond all this turbulence and know when, where and how to prune." But to the mother of the good little girl she gave the impression that her work was even harder than that of pruning, for she must graft. To this mother she said, "You are content now because your

child is so gentle and easy to manage.

It is comfortable no doubt, but where is the promise of mature power? You must graft responsibility and active generosity. You cannot change her sweet nature, and would not if you could, but think of the many ways in which it can be enriched."

One object then in training children should be to better fit them for life. One great recourse of safety will be to early place at their command good reading, good books. From this companionship will come good thoughts, which must give good character.

Pruning and grafting! Pruning and grafting! Mine, you say, are only theories. My theories, then, I leave with you.

RURAL OBSERVATIONS IN NORWAY, SWEDEN AND RUSSIA.

BY MRS. ELLEN M. HEALEY, GREENWICH, OHIO.

[Read at the Farmers' Institute held at Greenwich, Huron County, January 20 and 21, 1905.]

I shall try in this paper to tell without referring to history some things as I saw them. The first month of our journey was spent mostly on the water, on no less than ten steamers. After landing in Liverpool we went to Newcastle, England, by way of York and Durham, stopping and visiting the points of interest in these two cathedral towns. We sailed from Newcastle for Bergen, Norway. All expected to be seasick from the reports received of the North Sea, but it was smooth this time.

Our first sight of Norway was of the barren hills of the west coast; as we came nearer and entered the fjords we could see green slopes, snow capped mountains, rapid streams falling in cascades down the mountains from the melting snow. Even this did not prepare us for the natural beauty around Bergen, one of the oldest and most picturesque towns in Norway. It has seventy-two thousand six hundred inhabitants. Many of the buildings have red tiled roofs. The older houses are timber built and usually painted white; the queer and gay costumes, lighthearted and happy people made the streets a highly colored picture. The general appearance of the town was modern, wide streets at right angles, designed chiefly to prevent the spreading of fire. The old Hanseatic quarters were full of interest, and the odors would make a good housekeeper sick. The fish market in Bergen is the largest in Norway, the fish and the costumes of the market men and women made it worth many visits.

Every one was out to enjoy the evening's daylight till 11:00 o'clock p. m. Bands of musicians played every night till midnight, regardless of weather conditions. Bergen has the record of "rain every day." The rain fall there annually is seventy-two inches.

One day we took a trip by steam cars and a long walk. We saw some of the sod roofed houses.

In little patches (you could not call them gardens), they were raising Norway spruce and pine trees, from the seeds, to ship. The trees were not over two inches high.

It was here that I first saw the typical Norway haying. The whole family go to the field with scythes, rakes and poles, the latter to make a pole fence on which to cure the hay. The poles are placed on stakes and are about ten inches apart,, As soon as the grass is cut it is strung on these poles. When finished it is five or six feet high and looks like a grass wall. Some

cannot afford poles; they make a fiber rope, stringing it between the stakes and using it in the same way as the poles. The poles are carefully cared for from year to year.

From Bergen we went north, mostly among the islands and fjords, making many stops. We saw many humble homes in sheltered places under the hills and mountains; their little fields, not as large as a good-sized church room, made us wonder what they lived on. We saw some fine estates that had had good care for ages; they had numerous buildings, stone spring houses, wharves and warehouses. The fields showed by their color the grains, grass and clover.

I never such large full heads of red clover as I saw in Norway. With a glass we could see the stock grazing and nearly always a woman dressed in black going to or from the spring. She would carry two pails suspended from a yoke on her shoulders. North of the Artic Circle, most of the mountains are picturesque, pointed in shape, often rising immediately from the sea. So far as not covered with snow they are clothed with a green moss. There is no lack of barren rocks. The growth of trees in these northern regions is scanty. There is an abundance of fresh vegetation, owing to the dampness of the summers and the mildness of the winters. Sheep and other animals can remain in the open air all the year round. Churches on the various islands seem to be guides as lighthouses are on our shores.

Tromso is a town of seven thousand, about two hundred and twenty-five miles south of the North Cape. The trees here are mountain ash, wild cherry and birch, which attain a surprising size. Leaves on the same kind of trees here are much larger than farther south. Here we saw, for the first time on this trip Laplanders (after visiting the town and the most northerly museum in the world). We were interested in watching a flirtation between two Lapps. There is a Lapp encampment near Tromso. They own a herd of two thousand or three thousand reindeers, which graze on the hills, and are caught by a lasso thrown over their horns. The reindeers are milked but twice a week, the rich and rather gamy milk, one of the Lapp's chief articles of diet, is diluted with water before using. The milk is strong and thick as if it had been beaten up with eggs.

Through the long day of months the street lamp posts in Tromso are taken down and stored, as they are targets for stones which all small boys like to throw. Since they have an electric plant the long night of months is made into regular day and night of twenty-four hours.

Steaming away on our journey north we passed by the entrance to Altenfjord, which locality is remarkable for its rich vegetation. It is the most northern point on the globe where agriculture is carried on; beautiful foliage trees, and wild strawberries are found here, potatoes flourish too. Altenfjord is where the plot of "Thelma" is laid. At Hammerfest, the most northerly town in the world, vegetation is so scanty that a patch of grass, which might be covered with an ordinary sized newspaper, would be hailed as a meadow. In the windows of homes and shops geraniums, pinks, and roses were in bloom, the latter as beautiful as any I ever saw-not many on the small bush-and we stopped to admire the flowers, and a native woman in the home cut off a beautiful white rose and brought it out, giving it to one in our party. Still seventy-eight miles further on, at the North Cape, many flowers grow. I had a pretty bouquet picked at the North Cape. The charms of the midnight sun as seen from the North Cape have been described in graphic language by authors, poets and orators, but to see it as we did last July makes the description very tame.