The Arizona champion., 1890-09-13
RAISING A FAMILY.
In Some Parts of New England It Is Not an
 Expensive Undertaking.

Expensive Undertaking.
 The cost of bringing up a family ot five or six children comfortably in the town of Mount Desert does not exceed $25O a year if the house, garden patch and COW pasture be already provided from savings of tho husband and wife before marriage, and if the family, as a 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 Sl.75, work is scarce, the winter is long and few men can get moro than five months employment at these wages in 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, p ok the abundant b1ueberries on the rocky hills in August and shoot ducks at the seasons of migration. Wild nature still yields to the sl1illful seeker 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 artificial light needed, nt cost not exceeding two dollars a year; the family do all their own work W th- out waste; there Is but one fire, except on rare occasions, and that single fire is in stove which delivers all its heat in- to the house; the wife and daughters knit the family stockings, mittens and muf1lers, mend all the clothes, and for the most part make all their own. Tho ready-made clothing which the men buy at the stores is very cheap (S10 to Sl5 suit), being made of cotton with but a 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 be ng brought on new places 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 rain for lifetime. The old Swiss porter, who Is carrying the mounted travellers Valise over the Gemmi, puts on thick woolen jacket of 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 to be out-oi-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 (S2 to S3 a suit). However hard it may be for city people to understand it, the fact remains that S25O year is a sum adequate to the com fortable and wholesome support of family of seven or eight persons in the town of Mount Desert, provided that a house, a garden and pasture are se- cured to them. m.-President Charles ".