Chapter I: Cure Fits!

When I say cure I do not mean merely to stop them for a time and then have them return again, I mean a radical cure. I have made the disease of FITS, EPILEPSY or FALLING SICKNESS a life-long study. I warrant my remedy to cure the worst cases. Because others have failed is no reason for not now receiving a cure. Send at once for a treatise and a Free Bottle of my infallible remedy. Give Express and Post Office. It costs you nothing for a trial, and I will cure you. Address Dr. H.G. ROOT, 183 Pearl St., New York.

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THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR.

CONTAINING Practical Observations on the Causes Nature and Treatment of Diseases and Lameness in Horses, by GEO. H. DADD, M.D. Will be sent upon receipt of price, $1.50; or free to any sender of three subscribers to this paper, at $2 each, by

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., Chicago.

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500 VIRGINIA FARMS & MILLS

FOR SALE AND EXCHANGE. —> Write for free REAL ESTATE JOURNAL.

R.B. CHAFFIN & CO., Richmond, Virginia.

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STANDARD BOOKS.

ROPP’S CALCULATOR AND DIARY.

Practical Arithmetic made EASY, SIMPLE, and CONVENIENT for all, by this unique and wonderful work. Is worth its weight in gold to everyone not quick in figures. Contains nearly 100,000 BUSINESS Calculations, SIMPLE and PRACTICABLE Rules and ORIGINAL Methods—the CREAM of this great and useful science—which makes it possible and EASY for ANY ONE, even a child, to make CORRECT and INSTANTANEOUS computations in GRAIN, Stock, Hay, Coal, Cotton, Merchandise. INTEREST, Percentage, Profit and Loss, Wages, Measurement of Lumber, Logs, Cisterns, Tanks, Granaries, Wagon-beds, Corn-cribs, Cordwood, Hay-stacks, Lands, Carpenters’, Plasterers’, and Masons’ work, besides THOUSANDS of other practical problems which come up every day in the year. Will prove of GREAT BENEFIT, almost A NECESSITY, in the hands of every FARMER, Mechanic, and Tradesman.

It is neatly printed, elegantly bound, accompanied by a RENEWABLE Diary, SILICATE Slate, PERPETUAL Calendar, and VALUABLE POCKET-BOOK, all combined, for the price of a COMMON diary.

Fine English Cloth $ .50 Fine English Cloth, with flap .75 Fine Roan Leather, with flap 1.00

Sent postpaid to any address on receipt of price.

Address PRAIRIE FARMER PUB. CO., CHICAGO ILL.

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How to Paint

A new work by A PRACTICAL PAINTER, designed for the use of TRADESMEN, MECHANICS, MERCHANTS, FARMERS, and as a guide to PROFESSIONAL PAINTERS. Containing a Plain, Common-Sense Statement of the methods employed by Painters to produce satisfactory results in PLAIN and FANCY PAINTING of every description, including FORMULAS for MIXING PAINT in OIL or WATER, Tools required, etc. This is just the book needed by any person having anything to paint and makes

“EVERY MAN HIS OWN PAINTER.”

Full directions for using WHITE LEAD LAMP BLACK—IVORY BLACK— PRUSSIAN BLUE—ULTRAMARINE—GREEN—YELLOW—BROWN—VERMILLION— LAKE—CARMINE—WHITING—GLUE—ASPHALTUM—PUMICE STONE, and SPIRITS OF TURPENTINE—OILS—VARNISHES—FURNITURE VARNISH—MILK PAINT—PREPARING CALCIMINE.

Paint for Outbuildings

—WHITEWASH—Paste for PAPER HANGING—HANGING PAPER—GRAINING IN OAK, MAPLE, MAHOGANY, ROSEWOOD, BLACK WALNUT—STAINING—GILDING— BRONZING—TRANSFERRING—DECALCOMANIA—MAKING RUSTIC PICTURES— PAINTING FLOWER-STAND—MAHOGANY POLISH—ROSEWOOD POLISH— VARNISHING FURNITURE—WAXING FURNITURE—CLEANING PAINT—

Paint for Farming Tools

for MACHINERY, and for HOUSEHOLD FIXTURES

To Paint a Farm Wagon

—to RE-VARNISH A CARRIAGE—to make PLASTER CASTS. The work is neatly printed, with illustrations wherever they can serve to make the subject plainer, and it will save MANY TIMES its cost yearly. Every family should possess a copy. Price, by mail, postpaid, $1. Forwarded free to any sender of two subscribers to this paper at $2 each. Address

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., Chicago.

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STANDARD WORKS.

By PETER HENDERSON

Gardening for Profit,

A WELL-KNOWN WORK ON

Market and Family Gardening

Gardening FOR Pleasure

A guide to the amateur in the Fruit, Vegetable, and Flower Garden, with full directions for the Green-House, Conservatory, and Window Garden.

PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE,

A guide to successful Propagation and Cultivation of Florists’ Plants.

PRICE, $1.50 EACH, BY MAIL, POSTPAID.

Address PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., Chicago.

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TALKS ON MANURES

By JOSEPH HARRIS, M. S.

Author of “_Walks and Talks on the Farm_,” “_Farm Crops_,” “_Harris on the Pig_,” _etc._

While we have no lack of treatises upon artificial fertilizers, there is no work in which the main stay of the farm—the manure made upon the farm is treated so satisfactorily or thoroughly as in this volume. Starting with the question,

“WHAT IS MANURE?”

the author, well known on both sides of the water by his writings, runs through in sufficient detail every source of manure on the farm, discussing the methods of making rich manure; the proper keeping and applying it, and especially the

USES OF MANURE,

and the effects of different artificial fertilizers, as compared with farm-yard manure, upon different crops. In this he makes free use of the striking series of experiments instituted years ago, and still continued, by Lawes and Gilbert, of Rothamsted, England. The

REMARKABLE TABLES

in which the results of these experiments are given, are here for the first time made accessible to the American farmer. In fact, there is scarcely any point relating to fertilizing the soil, including suitable manures for special crops, that is not treated, and while the teachings are founded upon the most elaborate scientific researches, they are so far divested of the technical language of science as to commend themselves to farmers as eminently “practical.” It is not often that the results of scientific investigations are presented in a manner so thoroughly popular. 12mo. Price, postpaid, $1.50.

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO. Chicago.

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HOUSE PLANS FOR EVERYBODY.

By S. B. REED, Architect.

One of the most popular Architectural books ever issued, giving a wide range of design from a dwelling costing $250 up to $8,000, and adapted to farm, village, and town residences. It gives an

Estimate of the Quantity of Every Article Used

in the construction, and probable cost of constructing any one of the buildings presented. Profusely illustrated. Price, postpaid, $1.50. Address

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., Chicago

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NOW Is the time to Subscribe for THE PRAIRIE FARMER. Price only $2.00 per year is worth double the money.

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REMEMBER _that_ $2.00 _pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country._

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HOUSEHOLD.

For nothing lovelier can be found
In woman than to study _household_ good.—_Milton._

AN HUMBLE CONFESSION.

Who is that little woman there,
With laughing eyes and dark-brown hair,
And physiognomy so fair?
My wife.

Who’s not as meek as she appears,
And doesn’t believe one-half she hears,
And toward me entertains no fears?
My consort.

Who wakes me up on every morning,
About the time the day’s dawning,
My protestations calmly scorning?
My spouse.

Who marks my clothes with India ink,
And darns my stockings quick as a wink,
While I sit by and smoke and think?
My frau.

Who asks me every day for money,
With countenance demure and funny,
And calls me “pretty boy” and “honey?”
My little woman.

Who runs this house both night and day,
And over all exerts her sway;
Who’s boss o’ this shanty, anyway?
My better half!

—_San Francisco Call._

PYRAMIDAL WOMEN.

It has long been a social mystery, over which conservatives and radicals have puzzled alike, why the gifted men and women of our race should spring almost exclusively from the intermediate ranks of life. The solution is found in Piazzi Smyth’s metaphor of the Great Pyramid. A circumscribed routine of pleasure on one hand, of toil on the other, equally engrosses the time and thoughts of the dwellers at either end. It is only in the middle of the pyramid that one is free to live up to the standard of the hideless coffer, the sarcophagus measure, the measure of a man!

Of the feminine attainers to this measure, says a writer in the American Queen, the women who are taking up their lives and living them fully in all their length and breadth and dignity, as lives must be lived to reach the cosmic standard of the pyramidal man, there is found one pre-eminent type in that woman of letters against whom a hard battle is being waged to-day.

To woman emancipated, freed from veil and harem, elevated from her primal position when she was but the toy and tool of man’s passion, this age of civilization points with a pride whose justifiableness has yet to be proved. Exterior liberty she has gained indeed; but in the face of the fact that this universal crusade against women of letters is but the determination to hold the old shackles on heart and brain, what is her alleged emancipation but a lengthening of the chain which still binds her in moral and mental bondage.

“The shrieking sisterhood,” be it said in justice to the sex, represent a small minority. Few and far between are the women who would usurp man’s place on platform or at poll; still fewer and farther apart the advocate of woman’s right to drop her petticoat for the untrammeled freedom of the trousers. But the great-hearted woman, yearning for recognition as paramount forces of social regeneration—the great-minded women taking up the problems of life and grappling with them for the sake of their weaker sisters—these are many, confined and silenced within the gilded bars which society is daily drawing closer and stronger about them. This narrowing of woman’s sphere, this withholding her from anything but a mission purely physical, is but a different form of the old barbarism whose alleged destruction is the boast of the present day; and the time is not far distant when the wrong must be acknowledged and amended, or retrogression brand the age for which we so proudly claim progression! Let the hackneyed cry of woman’s intellectual inferiority prove its truth, conclusively, as it has not yet been proved, or let it be silenced forever! The cranial differences existent between the sexes, upon which the theoristic foundation of their respective superiority and inferiority of intellect has been laid, are, in truth, the exponents of sexual intellectual equality, science having proclaimed them the visible proofs of that mutual dependence and adaptability which, sexually, mind has for mind, as body for body. Let this truth be no longer denied; let present social theories hold their sway, and in a generation of pigmies, moral, mental, and physical, our race, in all its glorious potentialities, must sink ignominiously into oblivion. This is an important fact, of which society seems to have lost sight—that upon the women of to-day and of to-morrow the coming man is wholly dependent, type being the transmitter of type, according to its kind. The increase of female education has naturally awakened women to a recognition of all her latent intellectual possibilities, and hence the growth of feminine ranks in that wide field whose battles are fought with a weapon “mightier than the sword.” The recruits of to-day are not all Mrs. Brownings nor George Eliots, but the world will lose infinitely in good and strength and sweetness if the budding Adelaide Proctors and Mrs. Burnetts are blighted by the propagation of that harsh masculine doctrine which, stripped of its pretty sophisms, is resolved into the bare assertion that a woman of talent is a woman unsexed! This doctrine, false, shallow, and unjust, is the enemy with whom woman is battling to-day.

May the pyramidal prophecy soon be verified when “all things shall be compared in pure truth and righteousness.” Then the conflict shall be ended and the intellectual growth of woman be revealed, the heightener, enricher, purifier of that emotional development which is the essence of ideal womanhood—an essence thrilling as deeply and tenderly the hearts of the humble followers in her footsteps as it thrilled the hearts of that greatest of woman poets, who sang:

What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain!
What art is she good at but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes and a smile at her pain?

pointing in the zenith of her fame to the divine right of maternity as the supreme, holiest and sweetest potentiality of womanhood.

GIVE THE BABIES WATER.

A recent editorial article in the New York Medical Record contains the following pertinent remarks on the value of water in the treatment of sick infants:

“With the exception of tuberculosis, no disease is so fatal in infancy as intestinal catarrh occurring especially during the hot summer months, and caused, in the majority of cases, by improper diet. There are many upon whom the idea does not seem to have impressed itself, that an infant can be thirsty without, at the same time, being hungry. When milk, the chief food of infants, is given in excess, acid fermentation results, causing vomiting, diarrhœa, with passage of green or yellowish-green stools, elevated temperature, and the subsequent train of symptoms which are too familiar to need repetition. The same thing would occur in the adult, if drenched with milk. The infant needs no food, but drink. The recommendation of some writers, that barley-water or gum-water be given to the little patients in these cases, is sufficient explanation of their want of success in treating this affection. Pure water is perfectly innocuous to infants, and it is difficult to conceive how the seeming prejudice to it ever arose. Any one who has ever noticed the avidity with which a fretful sick infant drinks water, and marks the early abatement of febrile and other symptoms, will be convinced that water, as a beverage, a quencher of thirst, a physiological necessity, in fact, should not be denied to the helpless member of society. We have often seen an infant which had been dosed ad nauseam for gastro-intestinal irritability, assume, almost at once, a more cheerful appearance, and rapidly grow better, when treated to the much-needed draught of water. If any prescription is valuable enough to be used as routine practice, it is, ‘Give the babies water.’”

WORK FOR LITTLE FINGERS.

To make a pretty little pitcher, cut off the small end of an egg, then carefully remove the yolk and white of the egg; next take a narrow strip of colored paper and paste it around the edge of the opening, making the paper pinked in one place so as to look like the mouth of a pitcher. Then paste a strip around the other end of the egg so that it will stand alone; to finish the pitcher paste on a strip of paper bent in the shape of a handle. Cups may be made in the same manner by cutting away more of the shell than would be cut in making a pitcher. Pretty air castles are made by cutting egg shells in half, building the cut edges with colored paper or cloth, and fastening to them bright colored cord or silk by which to suspend them. These air castles look pretty when suspended from brackets, hanging lamps, etc. The pitchers, cups and air-castles may be improved by being ornamented with small pictures pasted on them.

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Breakfast Cocoa, as a beverage, is universally conceded superior to all other drinks for the weary man of business or the more robust laborer. The preparations of Walter Baker & Co., have long been the standard of merit in this line, and our readers who purchase “_Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa_” will find it a most healthful, delicious and invigorating beverage.

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A man passes for what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people’s estimate of us, and idle is all fear of remaining unknown. If a man knows that he can do anything—that he can do it better than any one else—he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of the fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment days, and into every assembly that man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped.

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If you would enjoy quiet content, drop all airs and pretenses.

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EDUCATIONAL.

UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

AMERICAN VETERINARY COLLEGE, 141 WEST 54TH ST., NEW YORK CITY.

The regular course of lectures commences in October each year. Circular and information can be had on application to

A. LIAUTARD, M.D.V.S., Dean of the Faculty.

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BREEDERS DIRECTORY.

The following list embraces the names of responsible and reliable Breeders in their line, and parties wishing to purchase or obtain information can feel assured that they will be honorably dealt with:

SWINE.

Chester Whites.

W. A. Gilbert Wauwatosa Wis.

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SCHEIDT & DAVIS, DYER, LAKE CO., IND., breeders of Victoria swine. Originators of this famous breed. Stock for Sale. Write for circular A.

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REMEMBER _that_ $2.00 _pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country._

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LIVE STOCK, ETC.

HOLSTEINS AT LIVING RATES.

DR. W. A. PRATT, ELGIN, ILL.,

Now has a herd of more than one hundred head of full-blooded

HOLSTEIN’S

mostly imported direct from Holland. These choice dairy animals are for sale at moderate prices. Correspondence solicited or, better, call and examine the cattle, and select your own stock.

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LABEL

Dana’s White Metallic Ear Marking Label, stamped to order with name, or name and address and numbers. It is reliable, cheap and convenient. Sells at sight and gives perfect satisfaction. Illustrated Price-List and samples free. Agents wanted.