1876 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
427 
Numerical Enigmas.— 1. Allred the Great. 2. Never lie 
idle. 
Pi.—A horse bit his master; how came it to pass? 
He heard the good parson say “ All llesh is grass.” 
Diamond Puzzle.— F 
M A T 
MI SEE 
FASHION 
T E I N T 
E O T 
N 
Cross Word.—T rout Kun. 
Anagrams— 1. Absconded. 2. Obliterates. 3. Terpsicho- 
rcan. 4. Obeisance. 5. Absurdity. 6. Absolution. 7. Ab¬ 
stractedly. 8. Technicalities. 9. Malediction. 10. Assem¬ 
blages. 
Decapitations. —1. Dover. 2. Aden. 3. Bear. 4. Wheel. 
5. Bass. 
Names of Poets.— 1. Poe. 2. Dante. 3. Milton. 4. Young. 
5. Swift. 
Puzzle.—P udding. 
Hidden Flowers.— 1. Verbena. 2. Adonis. 3. Spirca. 
4. Lily. 5. Violet. 
No. 155. Geographical Rebus.— Oxford, Reading, Rams¬ 
gate, Pekin, Brooklyn, Stonington, Rio de la Plata, Canary 
Islands, Portugal, Europe, Cuba, Newfoundland, Cape Horn, 
Bear Lake, Tyrol, Kansas. Japan, Ascension Island. 
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN THE SEPTEMBER NUMBER. 
Cross Word.— Carnation. 
Numerical Enigma.— American Agriculturist. 
Anagrams.— 1. Companion. 2. Mormons. 3. Charade. 
4. National. 5. Albatross. C. Prophesied. 
Double Acrostic. 
Draco, Solon. 
D—uma—S 
R— ond— O 
A— be —L 
C— asc —O 
O— nio —N 
Concealed Square Word. 
MART 
A U E A 
R E A M 
TAME 
Hour-glass Puzzle. 
DISERTITUDE 
DISPARAGE 
WALLACE 
ELLIS 
BAN 
H 
GAB 
ESSEX 
LANSING 
MINNESOTA 
SISQUEHANNA 
Charade.—C anterbury-bell. 
Concealed States, Countries, etc. — 1. Nevada. 2. 
Idaho. 3. China. 4. Canada. 5. Oregon. 6. Spain. 7. Asia. 
Pi.—Who in a house of glass would dwell 
With curious eyes at every pane? 
To ring him in and out again 
Who wants the public crier’s bell? 
Gibberish.— Doing nothing is doing ill. 
Metagram.—H eart; in which maybe found “earth, art, 
ear, hat, hate, hart, heat, rat, rate, rath, tar, tare, tea,” and 
“ tear.” 
Decapitations.— 1. Gloom, loom. 2. Fright, right. 3. 
Factor, actor. 4. Flame, lame. 5. Flaw, law. 
Drop-letter Puzzle.— How doth the little busy bee 
Employ each shining hour. 
And gather honey all the day 
From every opening flower. 
Thanks for puzzles, letters, etc., to Addie A., Eddie L. M„ 
Gertie S. T., I. F. O., & A. II. C., Albert C., Sydnora, Amy 
and Belie. 
Send communications intended for Aunt Sue, to Sox 111, 
P. 0., Brooklyn, N. T., and not to 845 Broadway. 
The Doctor’s Correspondence. 
In the first letter I take up is a question 
about spiders and their webs, 
which comes from Arkansas ; the writing does not look 
like that of a boy; and if I make a mistake in putting 
his answer among those to youngsters, he must excuse 
it. He asks: “ How does a spider get the first web from 
one tree to another.” In attaching their lines to a dis¬ 
tant object spiders depend upon the wind; they let go 
a long thread, and trust to a favorable breeze to waft it 
to the desired point, or near it; the first line being laid, 
the spider then goes along it carefully and strengthens 
it by adding other threads to it as it goes_Willie K., in 
Kentucky, asks about 
WATERMELONS AND BULL-FROGS. 
Not that he wishes to know the same thing about both, 
no wishes to know how to tell when a watermelon is 
ripe. I can come very near being sure every time, by 
knocking on the melon with the knuckle; the sound 
given by a ripe and an unripe melon is quite unlike, and 
can only be learned by practice. If you put your hand 
on a melon and press down upon it firmly, it will give a 
cracking sound it quite ripe. It will be too late for you 
to try your skill this season, but I can not keep your 
question over until the next watermelon crop_I be¬ 
lieve that bull-frogs are caught for market by means of a 
hook and line. A pole is used with quite a short line 
and a hook baited as for fish, ora bit of red flannel. The 
boat is pushed along slowly, and as the frog sits upon 
the water plants or elsewhere, the bait is held just in 
front of its mouth; the frog pretends not to see it, but 
all at once makes a sudden snap and is caught. 
RELICS OF WASHINGTON. 
Jolm W. A., an Ohio boy, who has been to the Centen¬ 
nial Exhibition, wishes to know if the articles shown in 
a case as having been owned and used by Washington, 
are genuine. I feel quite sure that they are, as the history 
of most of the things is well known. They have been 
for many years on exhibition in the Patent Office at 
Washington, though why they should be put there, among 
models of washing machines and cooking stoves, I never 
could understand. It is very well to show Washington’s 
camp-furniture, as it shows how simply the great general 
lived. In these days, a captain or lieutenant has more 
style about his camp table. It is well enough to show 
his swords and cancs, and such things, but when it comes 
to hanging up the breeches, worn by the “ Father of his 
Country,” I think it is in very bad taste. We all know 
that he wore clothes of the fashion of his time, and to 
hang up his small clothes to the gaze of the public, does 
not strike me as quite proper. There are all over the 
country articles that were used by Washington, as during 
the long years of the war he was ill many different places, 
and in many of the houses known to have served as his 
“headquarters” he staid months at a time; of course 
the owners of these houses carefully kept all the furni¬ 
ture and other things that he daily nsed, and left them to 
their children as articles of historical value, and there is 
scarcely an old city or town that does not contain some¬ 
thing that is in some way associated with Washington. 
There are a number of these relics in the rooms of the 
N. Y. Historical Society, and one of our artists, who was 
there sketching some time ago, made a drawing of Wash¬ 
ington’s camp bed, of which we here give an engraving, 
that those who have seen his table furniture at the Cen¬ 
tennial, can see that the great man’s arrangements for 
his sleeping were no more luxurious than those for ids 
eating. 
WHAT IS A MEDLAR? 
Master A. D., of Boulder Co., Colorado, has seen the 
Medlar mentioned in some nursery catalogue, and wants 
to know what it is. That’s right Master Alfred ; when 
you can’t find out readily near home, don’t give it up. 
The medlar is a near relative of the apple; the tree is 
about the size of an apple tree, with remarkably crooked 
branches ; the flowers are much like apple blossoms, and 
white. The fruit is rarely over an inch and a-half across, 
and is flattened ; it looks like a small apple that had not 
been finished—there is such a large scar where the blos¬ 
som came off. You know that there is at the blossom 
end of an apple a little hollow place, which is generally 
hidden by the five parts of the calyx, or the green part of 
the flower, but you see it when you cut. an apple through 
lengthwise. Thinking that other young people would 
also like to know how the medlar looks, I have had an 
engraving made of it. You sec that this scar is nearly as 
broad as the fruit, and much too large to be hidden by 
the long and narrow points of the calyx, which you will 
see standing up around it. When you cut open an apple, 
you find the seeds, usually two, in five little cells or cases, 
lined with a very tough parchment-like material, all very 
near the center of the fruit. In the medlar the seeds are 
in very hard and bony cases or cells, that seem like little 
nuts, and instead of being in the center of the fruit, they 
arc at the top of it, and show at the large scar, and thus 
give the fruit the unfinished look I mentioned. When 
ripe the fruit is brown, and it is not fit to eat when first 
gathered, but is only eaten when it has become very soft 
and lias begun to decay. I never tasted but one, and can 
not say that I was much charmed with it, hut in Europe 
many persons are very fond of them, preferring them to> 
the finest pear. There is no difficulty in growing them 
in this country, but trees are very rare. You may per¬ 
haps like to know the botanical name of the medlar; 
some botanists think it is only a species of apple, blit 
others find it sufficiently distinct to have another name, 
and you will find it in most hooks as Mespilus, which is 
the ancient Latin name for the tree. Although this med¬ 
lar story is too long, I must add that the Japanese med¬ 
lar is a very different tree, and one that only fruits in the 
southernmost States... .Here is Master Ileibert, in Ionia, 
Michigan, who asks: 
DO STONES Gltow ? 
He has probably been set to work at picking up stones- 
on the farm, and finding that the more he picked up, the 
more stones there seemed to he the next year, has come 
t® think that there must be some truth in the belief that 
stones really grow. In stony parts of the country this is 
a very common belief, among much older people than 
Master Herbert, and who ought to know belter, that 
stones do grow. It is one of the great distinctions be¬ 
tween the organic beings, (plants- 
and animals), and inorganic sub¬ 
stances, (earth and rocks), that the 
first grow, while the second do not. 
Stones do not grow; whatever change 
happens to them is always in the 
other direction, to diminish them. 
All stones and rocks arc constantly 
wasting away, some very much faster 
than others, according to their kind, 
but all, even the hard granite, wear 
away. The air, the action of water, 
freezing, the growth of minute plants 
upon them, and other causes, are 
constantly at work upon them. You 
will no doubt ask, “ what becomes 
of the pieces?”—and a very proper 
question it would be, because I have 
told you at various times that no¬ 
thing is ever destroyed, blit that while matter may 
change its shape, it is all somewhere in the world. 
The pieces, which are very minute, make the soil, which 
is really only powdered rock, mixed with the remains 
of the plants that have lived and died upon it. 
CRUCIBLES OR MELTING POTS. 
In a talk about Iron and Steel, I mentioned that steel 
was melted iu “ a pot made of black-lead (such as pen¬ 
cils are made of) and clay.”—One young man asks “can 
steel he melted in such a crucible as that?”—I suppose 
that my friend S. has a notion that because the substance 
is called black-lead, it is something like lead in respect 
to melting, etc. It is an unfortunate name, as there is 
no lead about it, but is carbon, with a very small propor¬ 
tion of iron as an impurity. Plumbago aud graphite are 
other names for the substance, which is a mineral, found 
in various parts of the world. Though essentially the 
same as coal, it is very little affected by heat; it can not 
be made to burn, but under a very strong heat, and ex¬ 
posed to the air, it wastes away slowly; it can not be 
melted, and on this account is valuable in making cruci¬ 
bles. Certain clays also resist the strongest heat without 
melting; such substances are called refractory. Clays 
differ much in this respect, the most refractory being of 
great value for making fire-brick, such as are used for 
lining the inside of furnaces. Crucibles are made of 
fire-clay, hut the larger ones are made of plumbago, 
mixed with one-quarter or one-third its weight of clay, 
the clay serving to hold the material together. 
WHAT A LITTLE GIRL DID. 
Probably no little child, since the world was made, ever 
caused such destruction as did a girl near New York on the 
24th of September last. Sampson’s deeds of strength were 
as nothing in comparison, and as to the giants and genii 
that we read of in the Arabian Nights and other stories, 
why the mere touch of this little girl’s finger was more 
powerful than all these together. The touch threw out 
of place hundreds of tons of rock, that had been undis¬ 
turbed since the world has been what it now is; it 
changed the course of a mighty stream, it threw up water 
in immense cascades, and it made the solid cartli to so 
shake and quiver, that its tremblings were felt for a 
hundred miles. Great galleries, with arched rocky roofs, 
upheld by enormous pillars of stone, to make which took 
many men and steam engines several years, and which 
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, all vanished at the 
movement of that little hand. Perhaps some of you have- 
guessed that I am talking about the great explosion in 
New York harbor, and you have read that at one entrance 
to the harbor, called “ Ilell-gate,” there are dangerous 
rocks, upon whicii many vessels have been lost, and 
which the Government at last concluded to remove. It 
took a long while, and much labor and money, to tunnel 
in under these rocks, but at last it was done, and thou¬ 
sands of pounds of dynamite, more powerful than gun¬ 
powder, placed in holes drilled all over the work; these; 
WASHINGTON’S CAMP BEDSTEAD. 
