Annual

“ II. Take an earnest and active, if not a leading, part in the advancement of home industry. Do your utmost to promote not only an annual county Fair, but town Fairs as well. Persuade each farmer and mechanic to send something to such Fairs, though it be a pair of wellmade shoes from the one or a good ear of corn from the other. ”

“ Produced by Colin Muir, and David Widger An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith Contents
INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations. ”

“ Now we simply put down a sum in the annual estimates for as many sliding-presses as are likely to be required during the ensuing financial year, introduce them wherever they seem to be necessary, and hope to go on thus for an indefinite number of years. ”

“ ‘My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. ”

“ The present volume, which includes the twelve numbers of the present year, is, in general excellence, an improvement upon all preceding issues. It is a library in itself, and will be a source of perennial pleasure to readers of all ages.
OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN. 1884. Illustrated. Boston. D. Lothrop & Co. Price $1.50. This beautiful annual comprises the twelve numbers of the year just closing, and will make an admirable present for the little members of the household. Its stories are just such as they will read with delight, while the illustrations make them double attractive. ”

“ Before us, gleaming in gold, crimson, and purple, rich blue and velvet green, and affluent in the finest engravings, are the English Annuals, for 1838, which, with their American brotherhood, will very soon, we venture to predict, collect some of the superfluities of this 'money-voiding town.' Love-tokens are they, for the tasteful swain, and remembrancers from the generous-hearted, to those who stand on the top-scale of their friendship's ladder. Annuals, both foreign and domestic, are every year improving. ”

“ How to grow annuals—Some good kinds—Some good biennials.
Many amateurs look upon annuals as rubbishy things to grow, and only suitable for the children’s gardens, but that is because they have generally failed to grow them properly. ”

“ If we assign three weeks to each festival—including the time spent on the journeys, and the delays before and after the celebration, together with the festival week, it will be a small allowance for the cessation of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the year, the main body of the servants would be absent from their stated employments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount in forty-two years, subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four days. ”

“ It is to be regretted, that the circulation of such of our annuals as blend instruction and valuable lessons with amusement, should be mainly confined, owing to their expensive dress and adornments, to the larger cities and towns. ”

“ The new year is equivalent to the new harvest, the new supplies of food which through the raising of the taboo are blessed and made accessible. Where there are several fruits which ripen at different times there may be several ‘new year festivals’, as among the Thonga, but usually there is one principal sowing-time and consequently only one festival. A festival of this nature forms the great division of the year, and this fact is emphasised by the ceremonies which aim at clearing away everything old and beginning again. ”

“ As the winter approaches we are promised increasing sources of amusement from the manufacturing districts. What sunny faces will break though the fogs of November—what giggling will drown the cutting blasts of January! Eschewing the wise relaxation of pantomimes, we shall be taught to consult the commercial reports in the newspapers as the highest and fullest source of salutary laughter. How we shall simper when mills are stopped—how crow with laughter when whole factories are silent and deserted! ”

“ The society (whose only notion of dividing time, would appear to be its allotment into months) holds monthly tea-drinkings, at which the monthly report is received, a secretary elected for the month ensuing, and such of the monthly boxes as may not happen to be out on loan for the month, carefully examined. ”

“ The carved band on the Calendar-stone, with its twenty signs, determined once and for all time the exact position to be taken up in all public assemblages, in councils, sacred dances, and likewise controlled the exposition of the products of the land in the great market-place. What is more: each division of the people, by reason of its indissoluble union to one element and one region, also had its own season during which it led in ceremonial observances. ”

“ The festivals divide themselves naturally into three groups: those of Spring, expressive of the hopes and fears for the growing crops and herds; [60] those of Summer, the festivals of fulfilment, including the celebration of harvest; and those of Winter, the festivals of sowing, of social rejoicing, and in the later months of purificatory anticipation of the coming year. ”

“ His pale eyes fixed themselves upon a calendar on the rear wall. The calendar had been the gift of a great banking institution; the legend across its top panel read: "Pay All Bills By Check, You Will Spend Less Money This Way Than If You Have The Cash About You." ”

“ The village folk all said, 'See, what a wonderful year for fruit!' Then one day, when The Good Year was off attending to matters in a distant part of the world, along came Jack Frost meaning to play an evil trick. ”

“ Langley's motto in mind that the "Little Garden Calendar" is offered to [vi] parents and teachers, and to children themselves who are old enough to read. The author has tried to tell in simple language a few of the wonders of plant life, and to set down certain easy methods of observation, including planting, tending, and gathering the harvests, from month to month, throughout the year. ”

“ Of all the year this is the most golden hour! As the farmer at the end of the season realizes the fruits of his labors and receives their price, so the season comes in a gold to which all is transmuted, in the sky and on the earth. ”

“ Seasons for different kinds of work.—It will be useful for the mistress and housekeeper to know the best seasons for various occupations connected with Household Management; and we, accordingly, subjoin a few hints which we think will prove valuable.
In the winter months, some of the servants have much more to do, in consequence of the necessity there is to attend to the necessary fires.
In the summer, and when the absence of fires gives the domestics more leisure, a little extra work can be easily performed. ”

“ An ingenious device by which to secure the desirable result that a family shall be sure to have a supply of the food most indispensable for a proper treatment of guests at the festive New Year season, is found in what are called New Year Societies. Each member of the society contributes a few hundred or perhaps a thousand cash a month for the first five months of the year, until the wheat harvest in June when wheat is at its lowest price, for example 1,200 cash for 100 catties or picul. ”

“ All the week he toils hard in some hole in the earth for this Sunday folly. The programme for the day is prepared on a scale of grandeur in direct ratio to the length of his purse. The necessity of spending the entire week's earnings is obvious, and to assist him in doing so seems to be the only visible means of support of half the people of the town. ”

“ It was really a daring stroke, so to time the revival that the first culmination of interest should be looked for on New Year's eve. On that day business, the dry sorts, would be apt to decline faster than the sun, and the nearness of New Year would make men—country buyers and horsemen in particular—social, thirsty, and adventurous. ”

“ Why, as soon hang up a list of the family so that you wouldn't forget how many children you had; as soon draw a plan of the village so that people should not lose their way about. Everybody knew what and where the books were, as well as they knew what and where the fields on their farms were, or where the dishes were on the pantry shelves. The money from the entertainment was in hand by the middle of February ”

“ The standard schedule, in addition to the leading facts of sex, age, civil condition, birthplace, occupation and house-room, includes education and sickness as well as infirmities, and leaves the return of religious denomination optional with the householder. Under the head of occupation, the bread-winner is distinguished from his dependants and is returned as employer, employed, or working on his own account, as is now the usual practice in census-taking. ”

“ The Church calendar, so richly dyed with figures of saints and martyrs, filled life with colour enough, and fast-days were almost as welcome as feast-days, for if the latter warmed the general air, the former cloaked economy with dignity. ”

“ As usual, everything shews in this month that our season will soon be past its perihelion: soirées, whether scientific, exquisite, or political, take place almost too frequently for the comfort and wellbeing of the invited; and loungers and legislators are alike beginning to dream of leafy woods and babbling brooks. ”

“ Let the reader call to mind a parish or union with which he is acquainted, and make it the scene of his labours. That period of the year when the demands upon the attention of the Board of Guardians, and its officers, are at zero, may be selected for making the first step in advance. The most convenient season of the year would probably be a late Easter; for at that time the weekly returns for in-door and out-door relief are rapidly descending. The winter is losing its rugged aspect and is rapidly dissolving into spring: and labour is busy in field and market. ”

“ Variations in yield from season to season and from manor to manor in the same season are so great that nothing can be inferred as to the general average in any one season, nor as to the comparative productivity in different periods, from the materials at hand. ”

“ All the people in the house have been busy for days. The dust and dirt of the year has been swept from the house into the street. The men [Pg 233] have been hurrying about collecting any money that was owing to them, for no bills must be left over till New Year. Mother and aunts have been sitting by the door to catch the light to darn, and mend, and make, for everyone must have something fine to wear on New Year's day. Such a cooking goes on the day before! and such a frying of rice flour cakes you never saw. ”

“ Besides the foreign traffic in calendars, there used to be a brisk local solicitude that we know the day, and when the next full moon would beam. The home calendars, this being an outdoor country, always showed a man catching a fish, killing a cougar, or just gawking at a snow-clad peak.... It is hoped that the calendars come back. They are an unfailing sign that Prosperity is upon one and all. ”

“ Good conduct remits four days in each month, or fifty-two days in each year; extra work, when available, is furnished to them, and credited at the rate of the number of hours of that particular service per day, as so many days of their sentence served. ”

“ Every quarter of a year, every month every day, there must be a supply for the gratification of the public, of new and luminous theories on the subjects of religion, foreign politics, home politics, civil economy, finance, trade, agriculture, emigration, and the colonies. ”

“ The quantity of man's labour applied being much the same one year as another, we might suppose that the quantity of the produce of the land would be uniform, and differing but little in different years.
The difference in the quantity of the produce of the necessaries of life in one year, from that of other years, must depend on the difference of seasons. ”

“ The community will be divided into ten sections—Section A, Section B, and so on to Section J. And to every section one day of the decimal week will be assigned as a 'Cessation Day.' Thus, those people who fall under Section A will rest on Aday, those who fall under Section B will rest on Bday, and so on. On every day of the year one-tenth of the population will be resting, but the other nine-tenths will be at work. The joyous hum and clang of labour will never cease in the municipal workshops.... ”

“ Look at this whole matter of seasonal work. Take building as an example of a seasonal trade. What a waste of power it is to allow builders to hibernate through the winter, waiting for the building season to come around! ”

“ Acres, crop, amount sold, value sold. There are 255 subdivisions in this schedule. Of course no single farm would need them all, and the schedule is made so as to be used for a cotton plantation in the South, a wheat farm, a kitchen garden, or a stock farm. Each schedule (four pages, 11 by 15) has space for ten farms, and is filled out by the snumerator.
General Schedule No. 3.—Statistics of Manufactures. One schedule is sent to each establishment, and the questions are grouped as follows: 1. Name of corporation, firm, or individual. 2. Date when this establishment commenced operations. 3. ”

“ Bethink you of all the mistakes you made last season; if you made any good hits, improve upon them this year. Every farmer should resolve to do all things as well as he did the last year, and some things a great deal better. ”

“ Others bury them deep in the ground all Winter, and sow them in February: And thus I have been told of a gentleman who has considerably improv’d his revenue, by sowing haws only, and raising nurseries of quick-sets, which he sells by the hundred far and near: This is a commendable industry ”

“ Let me premise by saying that I own a comfortable little home in a village of a few thousand inhabitants, not a thousand miles from New York, supporting my family by a moderate income earned from day to day, and my occupation is such as to enable me to spend an average of three hours of daylight on my place, from the middle of March to the middle of October, and occasionally a whole day besides. ”