14,6 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[Apbil, 
animals in the water, both will flourish, and all will 
keep pure and sweet, so that, if all goes on right, the 
water need not be changed for weeks and months. You 
know if fish are kept in water without plants, they will 
die in a few days unless the water is changed ; so if 
plants are kept in water by themselves, they do not grow 
so well, and the water gets thick and dark. Now why 
the fish and other water animals need the plants, and the 
plants grow all the better for having animals in the water, 
is a matter that is not quite so easy to explain to young 
people, but I will try to give you some idea of it. Before 
we attend to what goes on in the aquarium, let us see 
what plants and animals have to do with one another out 
of it. To breathe, you, and all other animals, must have 
pure air; if shut up in a tight box, where you had to 
breathe the same air over again and again, you would 
soon become faint, and then, if no pure air were let in, 
you would die. Breathing not only takes something out 
of the air, but adds something poisonous to it. That 
part of the air which, by breathing it, keeps us alive, is 
called oxygen ; that which we give out to the air in 
breathing, is the waste of our bodies, and is called car¬ 
bonic acid. You can see neither of these, and you must 
take my word for them until you can learn more about 
them. So not only you, but all the people in the world, 
and more than that, all the animals, from the largest to 
the smallest, are constantly using up the good part of the 
air, and giving back to it something that is poisonous. 
Probably you will wonder why all the air does not after 
a while get bad and unfit to breathe, and here is just the 
wonderful thing about it all. The bad matter which we 
breathe out into the air, is just the very thing that the 
plants need for their breathing, for they do breathe 
through ever so small holes in their leaves. When the 
gocd part of the air (oxygen) goes into our lungs, it takes 
up the waste of our bodies, and when breathed out again, 
though the oxygen is all there, it is so mixed with what 
we will call carbon , as to be unlike what it was before, 
and the two together make the carbonic acid that is so 
dangerous for us to breathe, even when mixed with much 
air. Now is it not a most wonderful and beautiful 
arrangement that plants should need for their growth, 
that which is so hurtful to animals ? And more wonderful 
still, they take the poisonous carbonic acid into their 
leaves, pull it to pieces, so to speak, use the carbon to 
help them grow, and the oxygen, being freed from its 
bad company with carbon, is sent out by the plant, into 
the air again, just as pure and as useful to animals as 
before. Now we must 
APPLY THIS TO THE AQUARIUM. 
The plants and animals here are surrounded by water, 
and not as those on landiby air ; and these water animals 
and plants breathe but very slowly, as compared with the 
others. Here is one important thing, the good part of the 
air, (oxygen), and the bad carbonic acid thrown oft' in 
breathing, can both be dissolved in the water; you know 
that solids, like salt and sugar, will dissolve in water and 
disappear; so these gases are dissolved in the water, and 
you do not see them. If you put some water in a bright 
tin pan, and set it on the stove, you will see as soon as 
the water gets quite warm, thousands of little bead-like 
bubbles, -which appear, long before the water is hot 
enough to boil; these bubbles are the gases (oxygen, 
carbonic acid, etc.), that were dissolved in the water, but 
as they can not stay dissolved in hot water, they appear 
as these bubbles. Fishes and many other water animals 
breathe by gills, which are lungs made to take the air 
from the water; as the water passes over these, they 
take out the dissolved oxygen, and give up carbonic acid, 
which is at once dissolved in the water ; the water carries 
the carbonic acid to the plant, which, just as the land 
plant, will take it up, use the part it needs, and give off 
the oxygen, to be dissolved in water for the use of the 
animals again. If, when you have a plant growing nicely 
in your jar of water, you set it in the sun-light, the oxy- 
Fig. 2.— GLASS JAR. Fig. 3.— GLASS COVER. 
gen will be given out by the leaves faster than the water 
can take it up or dissolve it, aud it will appear on the 
leaves as little bubbles, smaller than pin heads, just as it 
did on the pan of heated water. Now I know that this is 
a pretty hard “ talk ” for little folks, but I want you to 
THINK OP THIS, 
and talk it over together, and with older persons, until 
you quite understand it. I wish you to learn how your 
aquarium should work, and see in it, though but a jar, 
just what is taking place in every stream, pond, and lake, 
and not only in these, where all goes on slowly through 
the medium of the water, but on land aud all over the 
world, where the plants and animals are surrounded by 
air, instead of water. How admirably has the Creator 
Fig.4.— MERMAID WEED. Fig.5.— WATER STARWORT. 
arranged the relations between animal and plant life ! 
The animal breathes out into the air, or the water, that 
which would be poisonous to itself, were there too much 
of it; the plant needs this animal poison, changes it, 
uses a part for its growth, and gives back to the air just 
that which the animal must have, or die. So in your jar, 
the water stands in place of air, and the animal and plant 
each works for the good of the other here... .Having your 
jar, you need to wash some gravel clean, so that there will 
be no earth amongst it, and put an inch of this in the bot¬ 
tom of the jar, and fill it nearly to the top with water 
from the river or brook, or with rain water ; well water 
is in most places too hard. You will then be ready for 
THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 
Unfortunately most of the plants best suited to the 
aquarium, are not generally known by common names ; 
any plant that you find in still places in a stream, or in a 
pond, that has its leaves or a part of them quite under 
water, will answer. Take the best you[can find at first, 
and if you afterwards come across better ones, you can 
make a change. Here are pictures of two common ones ; 
figure 4 is the “Mermaid weed,” which grows partly un¬ 
der water; and figure 5, the “ Water Starwort,” which 
has little chickweed-like leaves floating on the water, 
with others of a different shape below. Both of these are 
common, and you will later in the season find others. 
Wash the plants, pick away all dead parts, and tie in a 
small bunch, to this fasten a stone to anchor it, and put 
it into the jar. Keep at present from direct sun-light; 
then catch a lot of fresh water snails, which are abundant 
in small streams aud on the edges of shallow ponds ; get 
all the different kinds you find, and put into the jar, a 
dozen or two. As soon as you can find any young tadpoles, 
or some frog-spawn, put in some, and if all goes well for 
a week or two, you may try a very small fish—just one. 
If the fish after a while comes often to the surface to 
breathe, take it out, for you have then too many animals 
for your plants. Better at first watch the snails and tad¬ 
poles, about which I will tell you more at another time. 
The Doctor. 
— ■«■ - 
Aunt. Sue's Oiats. 
Belle wants me to suggest some names for her little 
sister, and to give the meanings. That is easy enough, 
but I must leave her to make the choice. Adeline, a 
princess. Agatha, good. Agnes, chaste. Alice, noble. 
Beatrice, making happy. Bertha, bnght. Blanche, fair. 
Charlotte, noble. Clara, dear or bnght. Constance, con¬ 
stant. Dorothy, the gift of God. Edith, happiness. Emily, 
beloved. Eunice, fair victory. Frances, free. Gertrude, 
all truth. Grace, favor. Helena, alluring. Letitia, joy , 
Lucretia, chaste. Lucy, shining. Mabel, lovely. Mar¬ 
garet, a pearl. Mildred, mild. Paulina, little. Phoebe, 
the light of life. Rachel, a lamb. Rlioda, arose. Ruth, 
beauty, trembling. Sarah, a princess. Sophia, wisdom. 
Susan, a lily. Winifred, winning peace. Zillah, a shadow. 
There, dear, take your choice. 
J. L., Jr. (of Philadelphia)—to whom we are much 
obliged for the suggestion—writes me that a perfumer (or 
“ atomizer ”), which can be procured at the druggist’s, 
answers the purpose better, for “ spaf ter-work,” than the 
brush and comb. He says it “ spatters more evenly,” 
which is very desirable. 
We publish the accompanying letter (from a kind friend 
in Irvington, N. Y.), as it is just possible that some of 
our readers may not know that it is with just such letters 
as Lucy W. describes that we construct and find out our 
anagrams. She gives us two or three puzzling words, 
and in return I propose that she finds out these— 
“LINET,” “RHONSECO,” and “ LAUDING ” — all 
simple, English words. 
Jan. 29tli, 1876— Dear Aunt Sue: —We (that is to say, 
my husband, children, and myself,) have been much en¬ 
tertained with your “Chats” in the American Agricul¬ 
turist. One of your puzzles, entitled “ Pi,” put me in 
mind of an old game we played when we were children, 
which we tried to our great amusement, and also that of 
our friends; and I thought that perhaps it might be new 
to some of your readers; and as it costs nothing, it is a 
very good game for these hard times. We call it “ Let¬ 
ters.” Get some white card-board (various kinds of 
boxes, such as are thrown away in stores, will do), cut it 
into pieces about an inch square, then print, with pen 
and ink, the letters of the alphabet on both sides of the 
pieces of card-board (the letters must be the same on 
both sides) as large as the card-board will allow con¬ 
veniently. My family consists of six persons, and I made 
nine of each consonant, and fifteen of each vowel. Make 
all capitals. Each person then picks out the letters to 
make some word, mixes them well, and hands these let¬ 
ters to one of the party to find out the rvord by putting 
the letters together. It appears simple, but sometimes 
four letters only will be very puzzling. It is a good exer¬ 
cise in spelling, and while to read about it does not appear 
very amusing, we find that everybody likes it, from chil¬ 
dren of ten to men with gray hair. Such words as 
“dhoep,” “ reeppaacan,” and “ osdusnthg,” have given 
us much amusement. Hoping that this suggestion may 
afford pleasure to some of your many readers, 
I remain, yours truly, Lucy W. 
“ Little Mary.”— I do “ sympathize ” with the girls’ 
desire to make “ inxpensive presents,” and sigh for the 
return of the good old days when a watch-case (home¬ 
made), or a little bouquet of flowers expressed all the 
MAKING THE TIDY. 
love and good-will that is now expected to be embodied 
in a silver tea-set or a set of diamonds. “ A tidy for 
twenty-five cents ” rather taxes my ingenuity, but I think 
I can do it, providing you have saved your scraps of white 
muslin. Cut out 49 circles of “ mills,” of 5 inches dia¬ 
meter. Gather each one around (as though you were go¬ 
ing to cover a button with it), and pass your needle down 
through the exact center, drawing it up into a little 
rosette (fig. 1). Fasten it with a few stitches on the 
back, then pass your needle through to the right side 
again. Now wind some red worsted (or any color you 
prefer) ten times around your two fingers (cut off the end 
of the worsted), and lay it across the center of the rosette 
(fig. 2); then catch it through with your needle and 
thread, and fasten securely. Now cut the loops, leaving 
a little tuft of red worsted in the middle of the white 
rosette (fig. 3). When you have the 49 rosettes thus com¬ 
pleted, unite them as in figure 4, by a few stitches. 
Fasten a worsted tassel to each rosette in the upper and 
lower rows, and the tidy is finished. It will take about 
an ounce of worsted, for which you have to pay (in New 
York) from 15 to 20 cents. 
Sophie.—T o “spell blind pig with two letters” is a 
very old joke, and is easy enough—just put out his i— 
leaving only p-g. 
Thanks for letters, puzzles, etc., to Rosa Brodie, M. S. 
Lillie (we only care to publish original puzzles), S. L. P.,_ 
Cora A. L., F. Nichols, “ One of the Youngsters,” Frank, 
May, and Charles Stutt (or Stull, or Stults), but the letters 
are so lassoed with flourishes that I can’t decipher them), 
Lucy and Sunie, Eddie II. E., J. C. H., S. B., Bennie, 
Mollie, A. W. W., Pinkie, and Corporal Jones. 
