1877 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4r 75 
CONCEALED BIRDS. 
.1. Joe Clark went to school with me. 
2. He lived in Wrentham, Mass. 
3. I was told he came from Tonqua, Illinois, but I 
could find no such place. 
4. Throw some sand over the floor. 
5. Come Meg, rouse up girl! 
6. When are you going home ? 
7. Do look at those pigs wallowing in the mud. 
8. I had quite ail argument with her on the matter. 
9. He ate all the bread that was left. 
10. When does a cow look like an orange f When she 
looks round. 
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN THE OCTOBER NUMBER. 
Solution to K. T. M.’s “old puzzle.” Solution to the more 
Square "Word. Puzzle. 
JANE O! wliy use it? (Out of 
ADAM which you can get “ I, 
NAUM thou, he, she, it, we, ye, 
EMMA you, they.”; 
Anagbammatical Blanks.— 1. Adherents. 2. Obstreper¬ 
ous. 3. Aforesaid. 4. Burglaries. 5. Proboscis. 
Transposed Cities.— 1. Paris (pairs). 2. Naples (panels). 
5. Dongola (gondola). 4. Lodi (idol). 5. Home (more). 
6. Caeu (cane). 7. Gera (rage). 
indulge this once ; beginning by relating an incident 
which may “point a moral.” Some time ago we spent 
the summer at the Berkshire Hotel, iu Great Barrington, 
Mass. A lady friend happened to arrive at the same 
time with us. We were shown to the rooms that had 
been assigned to us, and after we were well settled in 
p'nrs, I went to my friend’s to see how she liked her 
quarters. “Oh! very much, indeed!” she said, “look 
what a pretty peep I have of the river.”—“ The river ? ” 
I exclaimed, “ where ? “ There,” said she, pointing 
in a certain direction. I looked, and remarked, “Isn’t 
that nice! ”—And what do you think that “ river” was ? 
The roof of the bowling-alley! My friend was very near¬ 
sighted the old shingle-roof was shiny and bleached 
by time ; trees grew behind it, and I could easily im¬ 
agine how their tops might look like bushes on a 
river’s hank. 1 thought that if her mis¬ 
fortune (near-sightedness) conduced to her 
pleasure by allowing a range to her imagina¬ 
tion, I would not detract from such pleasure 
by any statement of facts, so I never men¬ 
tioned bowling-alley to her. I believe that one 
can get a great deal of comfort and happiness 
by trying to promote the pleasure of others. 
M. Findlay wants to know if I can tell her 
how to make a “hanging-basket” of cotton- 
flannel or old rags....I would rather yoji 
should make it than I, May 1 You will need 
over twenty yards of rag, about an inch and a 
half wide, and you will have to fringe it about 
half an inch or more on each side of the strip, 
difficult on'e. Make a sma11 koo P of wire, cane, or whale¬ 
bone, (eight or ten inches in diameter),.and 
cover it with the same material as you are using for the 
strips. Sew one end of your strip to the ring. Drop it 
to form a loop about half a yard long, from the ring 
downwards; make another loop of the same size above 
tlie ring (as in fig. 2), fasten it at the ring where it comes 
in contact with the strip, and make these loops all the 
way round the ring, letting the edges of the strips touch 
each other, or even lap a little. Now tie a ribbon around 
the loops below the ring, so that you will leave a tassel 
Metagram.—Doge :—in which may he found (1) go, (2) 
do, (3, 4) dog, doe, and (3) god. 
Anagrams.— 1. Observances. 2. Connivance. 3. Verna¬ 
cular. 4. Momentarily. 5. Ambuscades. 6. Onslaught. 
7. Treacherous. 8. Ecclesiasticism. 
Send communications intended for Aunt Sue, to Sox 111, 
P. 0., Srooldyn, N. Y., and not to 245 Broadway. 
Aunt Site’s Clints. 
Autumn Basket.— Addie very kindly sends instruc¬ 
tions for making an “ autumn basket.” She says, “ they 
are very pretty and cost very little. You can buy a sheet 
of card-board [white, I suppose—A. S.] for about ten 
cents, which you cut in four parts. Take one part for 
yonr work. Buy a very small oval basket (such as are 
used for hair-pin baskets); cut it exactly in half, length¬ 
wise ; then sew one of the halves upon your card a little 
below the center. Sew or stick moss around the edges 
[of the basket, I presume, to hide the stitches or fasten¬ 
ings—A., S.]; then fill the basket with ferns, mosses, 
leaves, grasses, and berries, arranging them tastefully 
(see fig. 1). If yon can afford to frame it, it will look 
very pretty set back in a box [why wouldn’t one of our 
lamp-lighter frames do ?—those described on page 267 of 
the July number of American Agriculturist, 1877—A. S.]; 
if not, you can finish it off 
with little hows of some 
pretty color, and pin on 
the wall. You can make 
wall-pockets the same 
way, by cntling out a 
pocket from cardboard 
and covering the face of 
it with moss and pieces 
of cones, then fill with 
your ferns and grasses. 
I have made a great 
many for fairs.”—It would 
he scarcely worth while, 
Addie, to answer your question about leaves, as it will 
he December before you see this. I do not know how to 
crystalize grasses; but I suppose they are dipped in a 
strong solution of alum-water. [In the American Agri-. 
culturist for Dec., 1874, page 460. will be found a full and 
practical account of the method.— Ed.] To tell the truth 
about it, I never liked crystalized grasses; the process 
always seemed to me like “ painting the lily and scenting 
the rose,” hut if other people like it, I know of no good 
reason why they shouldn’t have it. There is room here 
for a little sermon on letting other people enjoy them¬ 
selves (harmlessly), and as I do not. often preach, I will 
Fig. 2. BASKET OP BAGS. Fig. 3. 
of the fringed strips (as in fig. 3). Tie another piece of 
ribbon around the upper loops, so that the remainder, 
forming a tassel, shall drop down inside, nearly to the 
loop. Now festoon a strip of fringed rag around the 
hoop outside the strips, and your basket is complete. 
Dried ferns and autumn leaves stuck everywhere about 
- such a basket, look exceedingly graceful and pretty, hut, 
of course, it is all very frail and needs dainty fingers to 
‘take care of it. You can sew the loops on to the ring in 
groups of three strands, if you choose, instead of sewing 
them all round close together. New, white linen makes 
the prettiest basket, but it soon gets dusty and soiled. 
The Metric System, of Measures 
and Weights. 
Last month I told you that the system of measures and 
weights was called the Metric System, because the metre 
was the starting, point, and stated how this starling 
point, or standard, was fixed upon. It was also said that 
one great advantage of this system is, that all parts of it 
—whether measures of any kind, or weights—have a di¬ 
rect relation to the metre, and that measures of capacity 
and even weighty, are easily found from the measure of 
length. Suppose you were where you wished to measure 
gallons, (orbushels), and had no vessel or measure known 
to be at all accurate, though you had a foot rule. How 
many persons, I wonder, could, from a foot rule, make a 
gallon measure, even if they should, by chance, recollect 
that a gallon was 277.274 cubic inches. With the Metric 
System it is quite easy to get one kind of measure from 
another; if one has a metre measure, which, you know 
(see table last month), is not divided into inches, but into 
tenths and hundredths and thousandths of a metre. I 
do not mean easy to get a gallon from the metre, hut to 
get the liquid measure of this system. As the metre is 
the unit in measures of length, so is the Litre the unit in 
measures of capacity, and to get this measure, you have 
only to make a square box that measures a decimetre (a 
tenth of a metre) each way—a cubic decimetre—and you 
have a litre, from which you can get all the other meas¬ 
ures. In the table given last month, for all the divisions 
of the metre Latin numerals were used, hut for measures 
longer than a metre, Greek numerals are prefixed. It 
may be well to state these again, as they are employed in 
all the measures and weights of the system. 
For divi¬ 
sion Latin 
prefixes. 
Mille —1,000 
Centum = 100 
Decern — 10 
IFor multi¬ 
plication 
Greek 
| prefixes. 
[Deca = 10 
J Hecaton= 100 
1 Kilios = 1,000 
[Myrias =10,000 
The litre being the starting point for measures of this 
kind, we have then : 
Millilitre. ..Viooo of aLitre. 
Centilitre. V 10 o “ 
Decilitre....... V 10 “ 
Lithe . 1 Cubic Decimetre. 
Decalitre. 10 Litres. 
Hectolitre ... 100 “ 
Kilolitre......1,000 “ 
As many hoys and girls will find this too much like 
school lessons to be very lively reading, I only give one 
kind of measure at a time, and hope that by taking it in 
small portions you will care enough about it to remem¬ 
ber it. I last month told you that the metre was equal 
to a little over 39 inches in length, and you will no doubt 
wish to know the relation of these measures to those in 
common use with us. A litre is a little over our wine 
quart, or 1.0565 quart. We have three kinds of liquid 
measure, and a dry measure besides, while the decimal 
system has but one measure for wetor dry articles, which 
is mtich simpler. A hectolitre is almost three bushels, 
or 2.837 bushels. By making use of the Metrical System, 
we should get rid of Wine, Imperial, (used in England), 
and Beer measure, for liquids, and Dry measure for solids, 
and have only one kind of measure for everything and 
everybody, and grocers could not buy their milk by beer 
quarts and retail it by wine pints, as they now do in cities, 
and make considerable by the difference. The Doctor. 
A Mechanical Pig’. 
Mr. Macarty was a mechanic, such a remarkably in¬ 
genious man* that his neighbors said that he could do 
anything from repairing a watch to making a steam- 
engine. They felt very sure that if Macarty would make 
a clock, it would heat the old town clock on the church- 
steeple several hours in the day. Mr. Macarty had a son, 
and he had great hopes that he would grow up to be a 
mechanic, and be even a better workman than his father. 
He called his son Archimedes—hut the boy’s playmates 
called him-Arky Macarty. Arky was a very ingenious 
hoy, and he was also full of fun. Once, when his father 
was absent from home for a few days, having been 
Called to do a job in the next town, there appeared on 
the fence, where the people of the village passed by, a 
hoard on which was printed: 
“Mekanikle piG—a Grate kurIossity— this Ear 
pig has jOints like ennY pig, it moVes as naTTeral 
as EnnY piG —& kan EveN etc & SKwEal—Ad mishin 
3 pins. Arky Makarty.” 
Some good-natured people, who knew that Arky would, 
have something funny to show, stopped to see the wonder¬ 
ful pig. Arky was careful to get the proper number of 
pins for the admission fee, and then opened the pen and 
let out the “ mechanical pig.” The young scamp had got 
hold of some black paint, and having caught one of his- 
father’s little white pigs, had painted lines around the 
parts, so that at a little distance the hind-legs, and ham, 
ttie shoulders, and even the head looked as if they had 
been made in separate pieces, and were fastened on. 
This deceit was helped by the painted pivots at the 
proper places, so that the pig had really a very 
“mekanikle” appearance, as may he seen in the picture 
of it on the next page. Those who first saw the ani¬ 
mal, greatly enjoyed the joke, and told others, so that 
Arky was very busy for a day or two in taking in pins 
and showing his wonderful pig. But at last his father 
came home, and the sign came down. We do not 
know what arguments were used, but one thing is cer¬ 
tain, Arky never liked to hear the boys at school say 
anything about pig, and he always acted as if the bench 
upon which he sat had suddenly become very warm. 
