AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
151 
within the sound of the Falls of Niagara, 
here wear the hues of a brilliant red. 
Peaches that on the banks of the lower Ohio 
are classed among the sweetest and best, on 
the shores of Lake Erie are insipid or too 
sour to be palatable. The Rambo, which is 
quite large, and one of the best of apples in 
Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, in Ken¬ 
tucky is frequently under medium size, and 
comparatively an inferior fruit. The Milam, 
which here at times large and alwffys areal¬ 
ly excellent apple, in Northern Ohio is voted 
unworthy of longer cultivation. And the 
Tillotson peach, which is one of the earliest 
and best peaches cultivated in this immediate 
latitude, years ago completely “ran out” in 
Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, and New-York. 
AN INDIAN’S LETTER. 
[The letter below we print just as it was 
received. It is very well written, and was, 
to us, quite interesting and suggestive. We 
think it will be so to our readers, and there¬ 
fore freely give it the space occupied, adding 
that our subscription list contains the names 
of a number of the original inhabitants of 
this country. These are scattered, one here 
and another there, among the different tribes 
occupying their various “ Reservations,” 
from Maine to Oregon.— Ed.] 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Shawnee Reserve, Kansas Territory, \ 
January 28th, 1856. £ 
If you can give an Indian credit for a short 
time, please send the Agriculturist to West- 
Port, Mo. 1 will send you the dollar as soon 
as I receive the first number. The reason I 
don’t send now I am inexperienced in wri¬ 
ting for papers, &c. Don’t know so well 
about my letters reaching their desired des¬ 
tination. I wrote for the National Era on 
the same condition. But for it I should 
not have seen a notice of the Agriculturist. 
He has his money, me my paper. 
Glad of it. We Indians are beginning to 
open our eyes a little. Some blame us very 
much for being no farther advanced than we 
are. But think for a moment how hard it 
must be for a people to give up all of their 
old manners and customs, and adopt entire 
new ones about which they know nothing at 
all. Don’t know where or how to be¬ 
gin, and when started don't know how to ad¬ 
vance. Heretofore they have had no crite¬ 
rion to go by. The few whites among us 
were here only for gain, cared not how 
they acquired their ends. I wish to gain in¬ 
formation, is the reason I write for the Agri¬ 
culturist. I am a one-horse farmer, 
wish to learn more about farming, stock 
raising, &c. Yours, &c., 
Samuel M. Cornatzer. 
Preparing Osage Orange Seed. —Isaac L. 
Stanley, of Rensselaer, Indiana, says, to pre¬ 
pare this seed for planting, “ Tie it up in a 
b^g and sink it in running water three or 
four weeks ; if you have no running water, 
deposit in any vessel filled with cold water, 
taking care to change the water every day, 
to prevent fermentation.” He thinks this is 
not generally known, and imparts it as hav¬ 
ing been proved to be a good plan, by two 
year’s experience.—Prairie Farmer. 
Why is Horace Greely like a damaged 
field of Wheat 1 Because he has been 
struck by Rust. 
DOGS, BIRDS AND OTHER PETS IN NEW-YORK. 
By inquiry among dealers, and a careful 
examination of “ account of sales,” we find 
the amount of money invested in the dog 
trade in New-York City to be not far from a 
hundred thousand dollars ! There are up¬ 
ward of ten thousand dogs sold here annu¬ 
ally, at prices ranging from ten to twenty 
dollars each, some choice specimens of 
highly trained animals selling at a hundred 
and fifty to two hundred dollars ; and we 
hear of one instance in which five hundred 
was paid by a gentleman of wealth for a 
beautiful Newfoundland dog. But the aver¬ 
age price is fifteen. 
A single house, that of Archy Grieve, 150 
Chambers-st. importer and dealer in birds, 
Shetland ponies, sheep, goats, foreign fowls, 
swans, pigeons, monkeys, and every variety 
of dogs, informs us that his sales amount 
per year to something like the following: 
Dogs, say two thousand, average price $15 
each—$30,000. 
Birds, including eagles, vultures, owls, 
hawks, doves, mocking-birds, parrots, rob¬ 
ins, canaries, etc., etc., say five thousand, 
at $3 50 each—$17,250. 
Shetland ponies, thirty, at $100 each— 
$3,000. 
Wild deer, say fifty, at $25 each—$1,250. 
Barn-door fowls, foreign, imported by him¬ 
self, four thousand, sell at $3 to $5 per pair, 
average $3 50—$14,000. 
Rabbits, lop-eared and others, two thou¬ 
sand, at $1 to $5 perjpair, average $3—$6,- 
000 . 
Monkeys, one hundred, at $5 to $50 each, 
average $25—$2,500. 
Gold fish, five thousand a year, at 25 cents 
per pair—$1,250. 
Thus we find the sum total invested in 
dogs, birds, monkeys, etc., etc., of a single 
firm, to amount to the surprising sum of 
$75,250.—Life Illustrated. 
A Green Yankee. —The editor of the 
Knickerbocker says, I should like you to 
have seen a specimen of a green Yankee 
who came down the Sound in a Hartford 
steamer with me. He had never been to York 
before, and he was asking questions of every 
body on board the boat. However if he was 
“ green as grass,” he was picking up a good 
deal of information which will doubtless 
stand him in good stead hereafter. One of 
his comparisons struck me as decidedly 
original: 
“Up the Northampton,” said he, “I took 
breakfast, and they taxed me tew shillin’s ; 
’twas a pooty good price, but I gin it to ’em. 
’Twas enough, anyway. Well, when I came 
down to Hartford, I took breakfast agin, next 
morning, and when I asked ’em how much, 
they looked at me and said half a dollar. I 
looked back at ’em pooty sharp—but I paid 
it, and after I paid it, I sot down and ciphered 
up inside how much it would cost a fellow to 
board long at that rate ; and I tell you what, 
I pooty soon found eout that fore the end of 
a month it would make a fellow’s pocket- 
book look as if an elephant had stomp'd on to 
it r 
Sam Slick himself never enjoyed a more 
striking simile. 
THE BURDOCK AND THE VIOLET. 
It came up in the garden, that burdock, 
just behind the violets and close to the rose 
bushes. It was in the corner close up to the 
fence, and we said we should let it stay, and 
it should have all the kind care and the gen¬ 
tle attention that the roses and the violets 
had. Roadside burdocks we knew were 
coarse, vile things, with their dusty leaves 
and their sharp burrs ever adhering to the 
passers-by, and we would like to see what a 
garden burdock would be like ; whether it. 
would be bright and fresh and delicate for 
growing in such sweet company, and so we 
were merciful, and let it stay. And it grew 
among the roses and the violets, and gentle 
hands watered it often, and the earth was 
softened about the roots, just as for its 
fairer neighbors ; but it waited not for them 
in its progress upwards. It shot up, rank 
and tall, and wide leaves spread all abroad 
and threatened to cover up and obscure its 
less assuming neighbors. And at laSt the 
blossoms came. They were large and strong 
and armed with keen thorns, and the flowers 
changed into burrs, and they reached out their 
thorny fingers and grasped the passers-by, 
and the white dust lay thick on the rough 
wooly leaves, and the seeds flew out on the 
wind to seek lodging places, where another 
year a new crop should find foothold and 
sustenance. A violet crept through the 
fence and looked up brightly beside the hard, 
dusty street, and we said we will let it grow 
there ; and so it grew. Water, it had none, 
except from celestial fountains; care, it had 
none except from sunshine and sweet dews, 
and the kindly glances of the passers-by ; 
yet there it lived and bloomed sweetly, 
“ wasting its sweetness on the desert air.” 
Its green leaves were as green as its cher¬ 
ished kindred of the flower-bed, and its blue 
eye reflected as hopefully as the blue of the 
summer sky. 
So we said to ourselves, outward circum¬ 
stances and mere surroundings are but little 
after all; and if change to Nature comes, it 
must be a work deep inwrought by other than 
earthly hands. 
Salt in Starch. —Our wife informs us that 
putting salt in starch, while it gives the 
clothes a good appearance and makes them 
iron smooth, is destructive of the cloth, and 
should never be practised. The same piece 
of linen was divided and used in two families 
in one of which salt was added to the starch: 
In this family the linen failed very soon, 
while in the other it wore remarkably. Oth¬ 
er circumstances confirm the opinion that if 
was the salt that produced this result. We 
use a bit of spermaceti, or a piece of lard as 
large as a small chestnut, in a quart of starch, 
and consider it a great improvement. 
Homestead. 
An exchange says :—“ A little child of our 
acquaintance was rendered seriously ill, last, 
week, by chewing a handsome enamelled 
ball ticket, which its mother had given it to 
play with. For the benefit of those who do 
not know, we would state that the enamel 
on the cards contain arsenic!” 
