In selecting a bow the chief point to be attended to is the adaptation of the bow to the strength of the person who is to use it. Bows, arrows, and accoutrements can easily be obtained in any city. Any boy can find good material for bows in almost any piece of woods, and easily make a bow for himself or his lady friends.
Targets are made of wood and generally painted in circles. The central point is the one to be aimed at by the archers.
The same dresses used at Croquet parties are desirable for Archery, and add much to the graceful appearance of the Archer.
Let us become skillful Archers and have Archery meetings as of old, and let ladies and gentlemen, or boys and girls, contend for the prizes.
It is useless here to give an elaborate essay on the history of Archery; any person sufficiently enthusiastic to desire it, can easily obtain English books containing detailed directions on Archery, and its history from ancient to modern times.
WE, as a nation, are not a happy, home-loving people. The “spirit of unrest” pervades all classes.
This enterprising, uneasy spirit, has been, and is, of benefit to us as a comparatively new country, in settling and breaking our wild Western lands.
But the time has come, when it is well to curb that spirit, and cultivate all quiet, home-loving influences.
Therefore, I beseech you, parents, to begin in earliest infancy, to cultivate a love of the beautiful in nature, give your little ones flowers; and as soon as they are able to play in the garden, give them a little spot of their own to dig in; and when they can understand the process, give them seeds to plant, and some few flowers to cultivate. I can tell you of a happy cottage home, where the children, from earliest infancy, have lived among flowers. Each had their tiny garden, with spade, hoe, trowel and watering-pot. The father and mother would also assist with their own hands in training vines, roses and shrubs, in artistic beauty. The good father never went to his counting-room without some flowers in his hand, or in the button-hole of his coat, the valued gift from the tiny garden of one of his darlings. Years passed and fortune favored them, but they never would exchange their cottage home, with its vines, trees and shrubs, for all the stately mansions in the town. And as the daughters married, and the sons left to seek their fortunes, they would look back with intense longing to their loved home; and joyous were their meetings around the home Christmas tree.