THE WISCONSIN FARMER.



  There are other and most important matters
which should not be forgotten. Keep good
company. Value integrity more than money.
Live within your means. Eschew wines, thea-
tres, and fast horses. Use no profane lan-
guage. Never quarrel with a partner. Be
kind, considerate and generous to clerks, and
also to your unfortunate debtors.  Cultivate
the friendship of all. Do your proper share in
promoting the public weal. Be a man, a gen-
tleman, and a christian; and you will make
sure of Ho inheritance in this life and of untold
riches in the life to come.



SCIENCE, ART, STATISTICS.

              Making Mortar.

  In common practice, the cohesion of mortar
is greatly impaired by using too large a por-
tion of sand; it should never exceed two parts
by measure to one of lime paste. A cask of
lime weighing 280 lbs., made into eight cubic
feet of lime paste, should be mixed with six-
teen bushels of damp sand. The notion used
to be generally entertained that the longer lime
was slaked before it was used, the better would
be the mortar made of it.
  This, however, is not the case with our com-
mon fat lime and sand mortars.  The sand
should be mixed with the slaked lime as soon
as the latter becomes cold, and no more water
should be employed than will reduce the lime
to a thick paste. In preparing mortar, the un-
slaked lime should be placed on boards and
sheltered from the sun and rains; it should be
open above and surrounded with some sand.
The water necessary to slake lime should be
poured upon it with any suitable vessel, and
care should be taken to stir the lime so as to
bring the water into contact with every por-
tion, when it may be left until all the vapor
has passed off.
  The sand may now be incorporated with the
lime by means of a hoe or shovel; and, if ne-
cessary, a little water may be added to produce
a homogeneous, consistent paste, when it is
ready for use. Sand from the sea-shore should
never be employed for making mortar without
being first washed with fresh water, because
the salt left in such sand is liable to absorb
moisture and prevent the mortar becoming
hard.
  In putting up walls of brick er stone, care
should be taken that the stones or bricks be
moistened before they come in contact with the
mortar. Every brick and stone should be laid
in a good bed of mortar, and should receive a
blow to fix it firmly. The bricks should not
be laid merely, as is the common custom, but
forced down, so as to press the mortar into aU
the pores and crevices.  The superintendent
of a building should give his personal atten-
tion to the vertical joints in the walls, as the



masons frequently neglect to fill them up with
mortar.-Scientific American.
  Inattention to these little things is one great
cause of so many rickety, dangerous buildings,
sometimes involving in their ruin the lives of
the occupants, as in the case of the cotton mills
in Massachusetts, a few years ago, in which
so many operatives lost their lives. It is not
now as when
       In the elder days of Art,
       Builders wrought with patient care
       Each unseen and hidden part,
       For the Gods see everywhere."
  It will pay a man here, as well as elsewhere,
to pay personal attention to his own business.



   EDUCATIONAL.

          How to Secure Neatness.

  It is said that cleanliness is next to godli-
ness. This may be rather an exaggeration of
the true value of neatness, but a great truth
underlies the maxim.  A proper estimate of
man, a recognition of the true dignity of our
humanity, which so distinguishes true religion,
will also manifest itself in a proper self-respect
-and neatness is but one form of expressing
self-respect.
  The love of ornament seems to be an origin-
al endowment of our nature. It makes its ap-
pearance where art would least of all be ex-
pected.  It seems, when properly restrained,
to harmonize with the beauty of the world all
around us. The flowers might have been cre-
ated without color or odor, and yet perform
every function they now do, for there are flow-
ers with neither; but God seems to have cre-
ated the beautiful to gratify the love of the
beautiful with which he had endowed man.
And, as a general rule, that soul is capable of
the highest culture and the most complete de-
velopment which possesses the keenest appre-
ciation of the beautiful in nature.
  And right here we would begin in the school:
cultivate the taste for the beautiful.  Make
friendships with flowers, with paintings, with
with ornamental gardening. Imitate their col-
ors, their outlines, and their plans, with pen-
cil and paper, no matter with how rude a hand



- -



26i3