1879.] 
A ME RIGAN AGR fOULTURIST 
Bright berries and seed-pods of attractive forms j 
should be gathered, and placed in boxes away from j 
dust, as they do not need any priming. A few years ! 
ago, while out gathering autumn leaves with a friend, ■ 
we observed he iooked for, and secured a number 1 
of, long, leafy branches of the wild, running black- ' 
berry. We afterwards, when they were made up, | 
observed how useful they were. The making up 
■of the leaves in bouquets, wreaths, and other deco- ; 
rative work, will be described later, this being- only 
a word of warning to attend to the most important 
work, the collecting. Some of the most brilliant 
leaves are found long before the first frosts, and 
continue until the frost begins its destructive work, 
daily presenting some new and attractive kinds. 
A Work-Stand for the Lawn. 
-— 
Ladies who take their chairs to the lawn often 
find it inconvenient to keep their sewing—their 
work-basket, etc—within reach. An or¬ 
dinary stand or table is too large to carry 
out, besides, it will often be very “ tippy,” 
from the irregularities in the lawn. A 
cheap and convenient substitute for a 
table can be made in the following man¬ 
ner: A good hard-wood stick is procured, 
one end of which is shaved down to a 
sharp point, figure 1 ; upon the other end 
two cleats are uailed—the shape of the 
cleats, and manner of fastening them, is 
explained by figures 2 and 3. In figure 4 
is shown a cross-sectional view of the top 
of the stand, which consists of a round 
board, with cleats so nailed upon the bot¬ 
tom that it will fit as a dovetail upon the 
cleats on the upper end of the stake. The 
stand and basket are shown in position in 
figure 5. It is more convenient to have 
the top so it can be easily taken from the 
stake, as it will then occupy but a small 
I■ place when not in use. It is well to have j 
j!| a cord passing from the top to some place ! 
’ | on the stake, to always keep the two parts i 
i; togetheri The whole stand is very light; I 
ii can be easily taken out, and is set by a | 
* thrust of the sharp end of the stake into 
Fig. 1. the ground, after which the top is put I 
•upon the cleats. It can be placed close to the i 
chair, will not upset, and occupies but little space, i 
The cost is but a trifle ; a boy can make the stand. ' 
Household Liotes and Queries. 
A Housewives’ Association has been formed 
In Berlin, Germany, and laboratory opened for the 
■examination of foods, detection of adulterations, 
etc., etc. Courses of lectures are given on domestic 
chemistry, cooking, and kindred subjects. Ex- 
Fig. 2. Fig. 3. 
animations are held, and prizes awarded. This 
looks in the right direction, and is a lesson for us. 
Drying Flowers with Sand.— “ Mrs. H. D. B.,” 
Mich. Many flowers may be dried and preserve 
their colors by placing them in perfectly dry sand. 
T'ne sand removes 
the moisture, while 
the flowers, being 
com pletely surroun fl¬ 
ed without and filled 
within, retain their shape. Full details of the pro¬ 
cess, quite too long to reproduce, were given in 
September, 1874, which number may be had for 15c. 
Adulterated Graham Flour.— The extensive 
consumption of Graham Flour has led unscru¬ 
pulous persons to practice its adulteration. A 
mixture of bran, middlings, corn-meal, and the or¬ 
dinary flour, is made and sold as first-class Graham 
Flour. This muddle of cheap stuffs costs, perhaps, 
oue-half as much as the genuine article. 
Flowers in Pickle. — It sometimes happens that 
it is desirable to preserve a flower, either for some 
association connected with it, because it presents 
some unusual structure, or for future examination, 
when of a kind uusuited for the ordinary process 
of drying. In either case it may be interesting to 
know that M. Thuret, an eminent French natural¬ 
ist, has preserved flowers for 1(5 years in a saturated 
solution of common salt. Alcohol is often used 
for this purpose, but aside from the expense, it ex¬ 
tracts the colors from the flowers, and shrinks them. 
A Heat Pattern of Tatting. 
If it were not for Tatting, many a garment would 
go without ornamentation ; many an hour would 
be spent in idleness, and it may be that some mouths 
would go without food. The art of Tatting 
A DESIGN FOR TATTING. 
lias progressed so rapidly that the designs which 
may now be wrought out of ordinary thread by 
a little shuttle in skillful bauds, is quite sur¬ 
prising. In the accompanying engraving a pat¬ 
tern is shown which combines the elements of sim¬ 
plicity and beauty, and is of such a form as to be 
easily built out, or enlarged upon, in all directions. 
The pattern is the single wheel and its attachments. 
When made in a single row it is used for the edging 
of garments. If constructed in squares of four 
wheels—as in the engraving—or nine, sixteen, etc., 
it makes a tasteful end for a necktie. When the 
square is larger and made with coarse thread, a fine 
and delicate tidy for a chair or sofa is produced. 
Recipes. 
“ Mrs. E. M. S.” sends us the following recipes, 
which she says she has used for a long time, and 
they have always given satisfactory- results: 
Sweet Pickles of W 
Melon Rind, 7 lbs. ; 
White Sugar, 2 lbs. ; 
Vinegar, 1 pint; whole 
Cloves, 1 tablespoonful, 
and a few bits of Cin¬ 
namon. Add a table- 
spoonful of Alum to 2 
quarts of water, and 
boil the melon rinds in 
it until a broom splint 
will readily pierce them. 
Pour off the water, add 
the sugar, the vinegar, 
and the spices, boil 
for twenty minutes, 
when it is ready to 
can for use. This 
will make four quarts. 
Crab Apple Marma- W 
lade.— Wash and stew 
,, . , . . . Fig. 5.— THE BASKET, 
the Apples, put into a 
kettle, cover with water, and boil until they are 
soft; then pass the pulp through a sieve. Measure 
the pulp, and return it to the kettle ; bring to a boil, 
391 
and add a pound of Sugar for each pint. Boil 
until it will “ set ” when cold, and put it away 
in bowls or other dishes, out of which the manna- 
lade cau be turned in a body. It is very nice. 
'i’lue Doctor’s Talks. 
I liopc that those hoys and girls who are old enough to 
he interested in these “Talks,” will look hack occasion¬ 
ally, and bring to mind what has been said in former 
months. For the last two months we have been talking 
about what are called the “ Internal Forces” of matter. 
In.August,we had that wonderful force called “Cohesion" 
or the “ Attraction of Cohesion,” which acts between the 
particles of matter, and which, as it is strong or weak, 
makes bodies brittle, hard, elastic, soft, etc. And last 
month I described what is called ” Capillary Attraction " 
which is acting all around us so silently and so usefully. 
We can give no more time to these internal forces, but 
come back once more to 
THE ATTRACTION OF GRAVITATION OR GRAVITY. 
I say “ come hack,” as our May “Talk ” was on that, but 
we have not quite done with it.. You will recollect—and 
it will he well to go back to that month—Unit gravity was 
described as that force by which every particle of matter 
attracted every other particle of matter. The earth being 
the largest body (we need not now consider the heavenly 
bodies), tlie largest collection or mass of particles, forci¬ 
bly attracts all other bodies on its surface towards it. if 
a body lifted above tlie surface of the earth is let go, it 
falls—which means it is attracted towards the earth. If 
a body, like a flat stone, lies upon tlie ground, and wc lift 
it, we have to overcome tlie force which attracts it to the 
earth. If you lift a hoard of tlie same size of the flat stone, 
yon will not find it so difficult—you do not have to put 
forth so much force as in lifting tlie stone. The strength 
of tlie attraction of tlie earth for other bodies, 
WE CALL WEIGHT. 
In weighing a body, we measure tlie strength of the 
force of gravity. In trade, in the exchange of articles, 
tlie greater number arc weighed. In weighing, the simple 
balance, figure 1, is used. This consists of a rod of metal, 
called a beam , which 
is exactly balanced 
on a pivot in the 
center ; at eacli end 
of the beam is sus¬ 
pended a pan. hung 
by cords, chains, or 
wires. If all partsarc 
nicely adju-ted. the 
beam will stand lev- Fig. 1.—a balance. 
el. There arc various 
other kinds of balances or scales, but we will not talk 
about them now. Besides scales, there must lie weights. 
These are fixed l>y tlie governments of the different coun¬ 
tries, and they are not alike in all countries. In this 
country we use tlie weights of tlie mother country, Eng¬ 
land. The starting point was grains of wheat; 24 grains 
of wheat was the. weight of a penny , and 20 penny-weights 
made an ounce , and 12 ounces a p®und. This was tlie 
origin of our weights, but they have been changed since 
then, hut how or why, I need not. now describe. Suffice 
it to say, that tlie weights we have in daily use, must 
agree with the “standard” kept at Washington. To 
weigh out say a pound of coffee, we place tlie weight in 
one scale-pan, and slowly add the coffee in tlie oilier 
pan, and when tlie beam is balanced, we have a 
quantity of coffee upon which gravity exercises the same 
force as it does upon tlie weight. If the weight be lead, 
and we weigli lead, the two will be of the same size; if 
we weigli cheese, the lump of cheese will be much larger 
than the leaden weight; if bread be weighed, it will be 
very much larger, and larger still if we weigh cork. If, 
on the other hand, we wish to know the weight of a 
substance, we place it — a piece of cheese, for ex¬ 
ample—in one pan of tlie balance, and add weights 
to tlie other. In this weighing, we get what is called 
THE ABSOLUTE WEIGHT 
of an article, but it has no reference to its bulk. The 
pound of the different substances mentioned will vary 
greatly in size. There is another kind of weighing, in 
which we take bulk or size into the account. We know 
that a cubic inch of cheese is much lighter then a cubic 
inch of lead, and that, a cube of cork is a great deal light¬ 
er than the cheese. But we can not readily make all ar¬ 
ticles into cubes to learn their relative weights, so we 
take pure water as the standard with which to compare 
all solids and liquids. Tlie weight of different substances 
as compared with an equal bulk of water is called their 
SPECIFIC WEIGHT, OR SPECIFIC GRAVITY. 
Let us lake a bottle of convenient, shape, and, after bal¬ 
ancing it, weigli into it 1,000 grains of water, and place a 
