HINTS TO AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.—About November stuff your calves for approaching show, and put the tails of your pigs over night into curl paper. Rub a little bear's grease on the head of your sheep, and pass small-tooth combs through their fleecy wool. Wash your Southdowns in warm soap-and-water, and let your little porkers have a good lathering, particularly about the chops. Trim your cows with satin ribbons, part the hair on their foreheads down the middle, and fix it with bandoline. Black the hoofs of your bulls, stir up your Durhams well, and see that they are properly mustered. * * * * * PRETTY THOUGHT.—"I would not be a pig," says a Dutch poet, "for then I could not eat it." LAYS OF MODERN BABY-LON. BY YOUNG WHAT-YOU-MAY-CALLEE. (_Aged five years and a day._) "High diddle lofty diddle and diddle wondrous high— Diddle exalted like balloons far up into the sky." Thus sung a youth of Kensington, a youth of gentle mien, Whose mother came from Knightsbridge, and whose sire from Turnham Green. "High diddle diddle," warbled he, "the fiddle and the cat," But very much I marvel now what meant the youth by that. But words contain all mysteries, as difficult to trace As Cleopatra's needle when it works the fragile lace, And into many patterns all rapidly it flies— As the clouds take strange appearances in floating through the skies. "High diddle diddle," sung the youth with energy intense, "The cat and fiddle," whispered he—alack, he spoke not sense. "The cow," he murmured mournfully, and rather out of tune, "Has at a bound sprung from the ground, and cleared the silver moon." I wot not of his purpose in singing such a strain, But hush! don't interrupt the youth, he takes it up again: "Over the moon the cow has jumped, and then, such sport to see, The little dog laughs quite outright, with a loud _ha! ha!_ HEE!" And now a sad elopement it is our lot to mark— Why should the little dog have laughed? how came he not to bark? For 'twas his solemn duty to try the course to stay Of the roguish dish to thwart the wish, ere with spoon he ran away. The song of youth is ended, but ever and anon The murmur of the melody goes undulating on; The echoes give in fragments the words "high diddle diddle," Then with a rush there comes a gush of—hark! "the cat and fiddle." The melody again I think I hear—or shall hear very soon— The line that says the rampant cow has jumped right o'er the moon, The little dog is laughing too, such merry sport to see, So in half-broken accents whispers a voice to me. But worst of all, and last of all, and saddest thing to say, A voice insists "that with the spoon the dish has run away." The music of the melody has floated through the air, And died off like the premium upon a railway share. A BUNDLE OF DEFINITIONS.