PROBAT, down to _closed doors_, _splayed_ and _rumfordized_ fire-places,[6] _seasoned wood_,[7] and _cold light-bread_.[8] Some things, too, they would see, to be shunned: I need only name excessive _banking_,--enormously multiplied _corporations_, for manufacturing, and other purposes--and, what strikes yet more fatally at the foundation of popular government, the _caucus_ system. But the strongest reason for a more frequent intercourse, is the liberalizing of mind that would result; the unlearning of our long cherished prejudices, from seeing the Yankees _at home_--that place, where human character may always be the most accurately judged. They too, have some (though fewer and less bitter,) reciprocal prejudices, to be cured by a more intimate acquaintance. No mind but must see the unspeakable importance of weeding away these mutual and groundless dislikes. The perpetuity of our union--and the liberty, the peace, the happiness of its members--in a great degree depend upon the accomplishment of that expurgation. There cannot be a simpler _recipe_. _The North and the South need only know each other better, to love each other more._ [Footnote 6: When the sides of a fire-place are slanting, instead of being square with the back, they are said to be _splayed_. When the back leans forward at top, approaching the inner side of the arch or front top, so as to make the flue only six or eight inches wide, it is said to be _Rumford-ized_, If my readers pardon me for being thus elementary, I will presume further upon it, and add, that the latter term comes from Count _Rumford_, who invented that improvement. The sides of a New England fire-place often slope at an angle of 120 or 130 degrees with the back; so as to make the width _behind_, not more than half the width in front. The wood is usually sawed, to fit the hinder part of the fire-place.] [Footnote 7: The wood is cut 12, sometimes 15 or 18 months, before it is burned. If cut in the summer, it is suffered to lie out for a few months, and then put away till the second winter, in the _wood-house_; a constant and close appendage to every dwelling. Southrons have no idea, though Yankees have experimental knowledge, of the saving and comfort there is in using this, instead of green wood--how vastly further any given quantity of the former will go, in producing heat. It has been satisfactorily shewn, that in a cord of green wood, there are about 140 or 150 gallons of _water_; all of which must be changed to steam--that is, _evaporated_--before the particles of the wood in which it is lodged can burn: and in doing this, just so much _heat_ is expended, which would otherwise be employed in warming the room. The time spent in this process, makes our people fancy that green wood actually _burns_ longer than dry: and because a dozen billets of green, when the water is entirely evaporated, give out more heat than four dry ones, they think that hotter fires can be made of green wood!]