A coarse sponge is a good thing to wash a carriage with; this should be thoroughly rinsed after each rub to free it from grit. Never use soap on varnish. It may be used on the metal parts of the carriage. Prepared chalk is the best for polishing the ornamental parts. For glass, clean water and a cloth or chamois skin are all you need.
WORK IN THE ORCHARD
Shield-budding
Many are the light jobs in the orchard or fruit plantation, which fall to the boys. I know a boy who at thirteen was his father's expert budder. There are high school boys in localities where nurseries and orchards are plentiful who follow this as a trade, making good wages at it. It is a wonderful thing to do, a very neat job in handicraft, and while a book might tell how it is done, nobody could learn how to bud or graft without seeing it done and then trying, till the trick is learned. Boys also follow the grafter and tie in the bud or wax the graft.
Boys are often employed in vineyards to follow the pruners and tie the vines to the trellis or wire with rags or raffia. They become very expert and tie an incredible number in a day. In fact many of the light jobs grow pretty heavy after eight or nine hours.
MAKING RUSTIC FURNITURE
Collecting material for making rustic furniture is a pastime that is suggested by walks in the woods. Sometimes a bit of twisted branch may look like the arm of a settee or the leg of a tea-table. Procuring the first part suggests the quest for the other pieces and the fitting them together to make a natural looking, balanced, artistic piece. Rustic furniture to be good, should appear to have grown that way. There is too much of the kind that looks as if it were made to sell. The truth is that the more truly artistic it is the better price it will bring in the right market. Laurel wood is particularly adapted for rustic furniture.
SELECTING SEED CORN
By a careful study of what experts have to say about the best corn for seed, and of the photographs of ears of prize corn, any young man of intelligence may learn to select from his father's field the best corn for seed. It may be that your father buys his seed corn from a seedsman. My experience is that seed corn bought in bulk contains a large number of poor grains. They probably shell the whole ear. The best farmers never plant grains from tips or butts of ears, since it costs just as much to plant and cultivate and harvest a runty corn stalk bearing a nubbin as it does a lusty, towering stalk with two good ears of corn on it.