Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-09-08
RAISING A FAMILY.
Tn Some Parts of New England It To Not an
 Expensive Undertaking.


 In Some Parts of New England It Is Not an
 Expensive Undertaking.
 The cost of bringing up family ot five or six children comfortably Tn the town of Mount Desert does not exceed S25O year if the house, garden patch and a COW pasture be already provided from savings of the husband and wife before marriage, and if the family, as whole have normal health and strength. Very few heads of families earn more than that sum in year; for, although days wages in summer is commonly S1.75, work is scarce, the winter Is long, and few men can get more than five months employment at these wages in a year. The man and boys of family can, however, do much for the common support, even when there is no work at wages to be had. They can catch and cure fish, dig clans, trap Holsters, pick the abundant blueberries on the rocky hills in August and shoot ducks at the seasons of migration. Wild nature still yields to the skillful seeker Q consider. able quantity of food without price. Dwellers in the city may wonder how it is possible for family to live so cheap ly, but there is no mystery about it There is no rent to pay; the schools are free; water costs nothing; the garden patch yields potatoes and other veg etables, and the pasture milk and but ter; two kerosene lamps and a lantern supply all the artifcal light needed, at a cost not exceeding two dollars year; the family do all their own work with out waste; there is but one fire, except on rare occasions, and that single fire is in stove which delivers all it's heat in- to the house; the wife and daughters knit the family stockings, mittens and mufflers, mend all the clothes. and for the most part make all their own. The ready-made clothing which the men buy at the stores is very cheap (S10 to S15 suit), being made of cotton with but small admiXture of wool The cloth is strong and warm, and looks fairly well when new, but soon fades and wears shabby. For children the old clothes of their elders are cut down, the wear thus being brought on new places. l The Hessian country girl wears proudly her grandmother's woolen petticoats, as we'll she may, for they are just as good and handsome as they were sixty years ago. A Scotch shepherds all- wool plaid withstands the wInd and the l ram TOT llleGlIne ue Olu SWISS porter who is carrying the mounted travellers valise over the Gemmi, puts on a thick woolen jacket of a rich brown color when the shower begins, with the | remark: ''The rain won't wet me, sir: this coat has kept me dry for twenty five years" The American farmer and laborer use no such good materials as these, and therefore they and their children look shabby most of the time; but their clothes are very cheap in first cost, and, like the cotton clothes of the Chinese, they answer the main purposes of all clothing. In a city the best clothes of the family must be often put on, in the country but seldom. Shoes and boots must be bought for the whole household, but these articles are also very cheap in New England, and the coarser sorts are durable in proportion to their price. For protection from rain the Mount Desert man who is obliged l to be out-of-doors in bad weather uses in sailor fashion, not rubber clothing, but suits of oiled cotton cloth, which keep out not only water but wind, last long and cost little (Sa to S3 a suit), However hard it may be for city people to unders tand it, the fact remains tha
 S250 year is a sum adequate to tho com fortable and wholesome support O d family of seven or eight persons il the town of Mount Desert, provided tha
 a house, garden and pasture are SC cured to them. President Charles w
 Eliot, in Century.