1862 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
85 
the two sorts first named above must still be 
the wine-grapes. In certain favored localities 
in this district, the Catawba ripens sufficiently 
well to make a fair sort of wine, but the Sum¬ 
mers are hardly long enough to give the clus¬ 
ters all the saccharine and other accompanying 
elements, needful to make a fair article. Sweet¬ 
ness maybe added, it is true, by putting in sugar, 
but this destroys the purity and delicacy of the 
flavor, and leaves us only a pleasant (?) kind of 
cordial. The Delaware and Clinton ripen well 
throughout this belt of country, and make very 
fair wines. For the table, the assortment of 
grapes is quite extensive, affording, beside those 
already named, such as the following: To Kalon, 
Union Village, Cuyahoga, Allen's Hybrid, and per¬ 
haps others. For a select list of four, we 
would name: Delaware , Rebecca, Diana, Isabella. 
3. South of the above, the range of selection 
widens. There, the Catawba yet rules supreme as 
the leading wine grape; though many of the 
western vinters are beginning to introduce the 
Delaware, and think that in time it will almost 
supersede the Catawba. A select list of six for 
the table would include the following: Delaware, 
CatawbaRebecca, Diana, Isabella and To Kalon. 
For some, the Concord would be put in this list, 
on account of its large, showy clustery its ear- 
lihess and hardiness, but it is second in quality. 
4. In addition to the foregoing, if any one 
wishes to experiment with some of the newer 
kin ds which promise well, we would advise him 
to plant the Crevelling, Roger's Hybrid No. 15, the 
Adiroridac, and the Woodward. There are other 
new seedlings soon to be brought out, of which 
we shall know and speak more at a future time. 
The Man and his House in Keeping. 
The principle of suggestion has a very wide 
range. A man’s dress and his house are apt to 
be in keeping with himself; the furniture is, or 
should be, in keeping with the house, and the gar¬ 
den, grounds, etc., in harmony with the dwelling. 
Happening to express some ideas like the 
above in a mixed company, lately, a little dap¬ 
per, pinched up man who overheard, began to 
banter us, and said rather smartly, “ Pray sir, 
what sort of a house do I suggest! what sort, 
ha?” Eyeing him a moment, we said, “You 
suggest a little, narrow, pinched up, Gothic cot¬ 
tage, made of very thin clapboards, and painted 
in a very spruce manner.” He turned away. 
“And what sort of a building do you put down 
for me?” inquired a square, plain, common- 
sense man. “You suggest a plain, solid, un¬ 
pretending house, with a white fence all around 
it, and a row of maple trees in front.” 
Probably the reader now gets one idea, and 
we beg him to dwell upon it a little. Whenever 
a man builds a house, let him not look around 
and inquire about ’Squire Jones’ Grecian man¬ 
sion with its Corinthian pillars, or Judge Brown’s 
English villa, or Dr. Smith’s French chateau. 
Rather, let him sit down and consider, first, 
what his own wants and comforts require in a 
house; and secondly, how much he can allow 
for ornament, and what will be in keeping with 
his character, position, and tastes. His house 
should express himself, should be a sort of nat¬ 
ural outgrowth and flower of his mind and char¬ 
acter and means, so much so, that people will 
say, as they pass by: “Well, that’s just like him; 
it’s natural—in keeping with the man.” And let 
this appear in the man’s furniture, books, dress, 
and the ordinary surroundings of his dwelling. 
His trees and fences and walks should show it. 
Aye, they will show the man, whether he will or 
no.—Who will build us a model farm-house, one 
which happily expresses the true idea of life in 
the country and on the farm ? Hot smart and 
•showy and uncomfortably fine. Hot covered 
with gimcracks, or built in imitation of some 
fashionable city house. Rather, let it be plain, 
solid, roomy, with the idea of repose and com¬ 
fort written all over it, and penetrating it through 
and through. Give it an air of dignity, earnest¬ 
ness, sincerity, and open-handed hospitality. 
Give it, above all, a home-like look. Of course, 
the appendages of barns, woodhouse, sheds, etc., 
should be in keeping with the main building. 
The grounds should be ample, neat but not over- 
nice, and the trees for shade should be few and 
massive, not over-crowded. We see, now and 
then, some approaches to this sort of building, 
but the complete expression of our idea is yet 
to be made. Let our readers look into the vein 
we have struck; it is worth working out further. 
Home Ornaments—Skeletonizing Plants. 
This beautiful art is now brought to such extra¬ 
ordinary perfection, as to give one almost an im¬ 
pression of a new creation, not of art but of na¬ 
ture ; and it is indeed nature. Our commonest 
leafy forms, stripped of the green tissue which 
constitutes their principal substance, are pre¬ 
served as delicate white skeletons, retaining 
perfectly the form of the leaf, with its most in¬ 
tricate, reticulated net-work of veins and fibers, 
and may be grouped or arranged in bouquets 
according to the dictates of taste or fancy. 
Thus it not only furnishes amusement and beau¬ 
tiful ornaments, but it is also very instructive to 
those who take an interest in the hidden beau¬ 
ties of the vegetable kingdom. When a leaf has 
been reduced to a skeleton, its net-work of 
nerves and veins is spread out before us, and 
we are enabled to study the various ramifica¬ 
tions of its vascular system. Hature pointed 
out the way, but man was slow to follow in this 
instance, as he is in many others, for doubtless 
the ancients must have observed leaves that 
had fallen in damp places, and thereby had their 
cuticle destroyed, leaving only the skeleton. 
Yet it appears that they were not artificially 
prepared until 1645, when Marcus Aurelius Se¬ 
verinus published a figure with a description of 
the skeleton of a leaf of the Cactus opwntia. (See 
proceeding page.) Although Severinus brought 
this art prominently before the scientific world, 
we find no mention of it again until it was re¬ 
vived by Ruysch in 1723. This naturalist first 
prepared the leaves by employing insects to eat 
away their pulpy parts just as we often see our 
rose leaves eaten, but he found that the insects 
did not always stop when they had eaten out 
the pulp, but often destroyed the solid parts 
that he wished to preserve, so he had to discard 
these anatomists and employ a process similar 
to the one described on page 117, voi. 19, of the 
American Agriculturist. (See also page 70 of this 
paper.)—Du Hamel prepared the fruit of the pear 
in the same manner, illustrations of which were 
given in the Transactions of the Academy of 
Science of France in 1730.—Francis Nicliolls 
went still further, for after he had reduced the 
leaf to a skeleton, he split it in halves, dividing 
every fiber. The specimens of this art on our 
exhibition table, from Mr. W. F. Heins, we 
think will excel, anything of the kind that has 
been produced in years past, for in these he not 
only skeletonized the leaves, but nearly the 
whole plant, after which they were bleached 
to snowy whiteness. They are worth seeing. 
Cheap Washes for Buildings, Fences, etc. 
Take a large tub, or a common barrel, and 
slack one bushel of good fresh lime, cover¬ 
ing the lime with boiling water. After letting 
it stand three or four hours, pour on cold 
water enough to make it as thin as ordinary 
white-wash. Then take one pound of white 
vitriol and one quart of fine salt, dissolve them, 
and pour into the lime water. If a cream color 
is wanted, stir in half a pound of yellow ochre. 
If a fawn color, add to half pound of yellow 
ochre, a quarter pound of Indian red. If a neat 
gray stone color is desired, take half a pound of 
French blue, and a quarter pound of Indian 
red. For a neat drab, add half a pound of burnt 
sienna, and a quarter pound of Venetian red. 
Other colors can be m'ade to suit one’s taste. 
Every body who has half an eye, (or weak 
eyes!) sees that either of the above colors is 
preferable to the glaring white which has so long 
been used on fences and out-buildings. The 
white vitriol, we may add, seems to harden and 
fix the color, so that it is not necessary to repeat 
the white-washing for several years. * 
Coffee for the Times. 
The present high price of coffee will lead to its 
less abundant use (not a bad result), and also impel 
many to adopt some substitute as a “ warm drink.” 
Here are two or three suggestions taken at random 
from the Agriculturist “ DrawerA “Constant 
Reader,” writes : “ To 1 lb. of the best unburhed 
coffee, add 3 lbs. of cleaned rye, previously washed, 
scalded and dried. Burn the whole carefully, and 
grind fine as wanted for use.” The rye will add 
“ body ” to the fluid, and afford quite as much nour¬ 
ishment as an equal weight of coffee grains. 2.— 
The Editor of the Miner’s Journal says he has for 
sometime used a beverage made of a quarter of a 
pound of coffee, and two quarts of wheat combined. 
“ The wheat is boiled about twenty minutes in wa¬ 
ter, and then placed in a pan and browned the same 
as coffee. So far, we prefer it to the genuine article, 
and it certainly is more healthy. With a pound of 
coffee and eight quarts of wheat, which costs from 
3 to 4 cents a quart, this beverage is produced so 
cheap that it makes up all the difference in the ad¬ 
vance in price, of both tea and coffee.” 
3. Miss L. E. Palmer, of Luzerne Co., Pa., sug¬ 
gests a return to the old fashioned crust coffee, which 
has long been used, and is still used in many families 
as a “warm drink.”—It is what the physicians call 
bread or crust “ panada.” Miss P. directs as fol¬ 
lows: “Brown some stale crusts, or bits of bread, 
as thoroughly as possible without burning. Place 
in the coffee pot and pour boiling water over 
them; they require very little boiling. A coffee 
cupful of crusts will make two quarts of fluid.” 
