1864 . 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
319 
The Sheldon Pear—A General Favorite. 
A novice, in looking over a full list of pears, 
is often bewildered at its length, and is con¬ 
fused at the variety of opinions given as to the 
quality of each. Some are good but do not 
bear well, others are prolific but indifferent as 
to quality, and some are good in one locality 
and not in another. In this conflict of opinion 
it is refreshing to find in the Sheldon one varie¬ 
ty upon which all are agreed, and which is 
equally praised by fruit-growers from Massa¬ 
chusetts to Missouri, and from Pennsylvania to 
Wisconsin. At the recent meeting of the Amer. 
Pomological Society, there was no other fruit 
respecting which there was such unanimity. 
One member stated that “ nothing could be said 
against it.” It is a singular fact that many of our 
best pears are accidental native seedlings, and 
these are often superior to those which have 
been raised with great care from the best known 
foreign varieties. The Sheldon originated at 
Ponfield, Wayne Co., N. Y., on the farm of Mr. 
Sheldon. The tree is a vigorous grower and 
healthy, and will bear as much fruit as the Bart¬ 
lett, or more. Its color and often depressed 
form make it frequently look much like a russet 
apple. When well ripened it has a fine ruddy 
cheek, and is altogether a very robust looking 
fruit. It has a very high flavor, which may not 
be relished by some who like sweet and charac¬ 
terless pears. It does best as a standard, but 
will grow well on quince provided it be double 
worked. One of our most experienced nur¬ 
serymen says it has less affinity with the quince 
stock than almost any other pear. The illus¬ 
tration is taken from a medium sized specimen 
sent us by Ellwanger & Barry, of Rochester. 
The following description is modified from 
Downing: Fruit above medium size, roundish, 
truncate-conic, sometimes oval or Bergamot 
shape. Skin yellowish- or greenisli-russet, 
often with a richly shaded cheek. Stalk short, 
inserted in an uneven cavity. Calyx small, set 
in a narrow basin. Flesh a little coarse, but of 
good quality, melting, juicy, with a very brisk, 
vinous, highly perfumed flavor. Ripens in 
September and October. 
Tire Dignity of Agriculture.— B. F. Tay¬ 
lor, in the Chicago Tribune thus “ hits the nail 
on the head” 1 on this subject: “A world of 
words is annually expended to set forth the 
honorable nature of Agricultural pursuits, as if 
they needed a periodic bolstering into 
respectability. People talk about farm¬ 
ing, much as the fellow did, in Charles 
Lamb’s presence, about honesty. He 
lauded it as a virtue; eulogized them that 
possessed it; he varied the words, and 
laughed and eulogized again; and after 
he had finished his discourse, ‘ Ella’ re¬ 
moved his pipe from his mouth, and 
simply asked him: ‘ Do you mean to say 
that a rogue is not a good man ?’ That 
question sat snugly over the blaze of 
talk like an extinguisher. Now, Agri¬ 
culture is honorable if you make it so; it 
is a noble calling, if noble men engage in 
it. The dignity of agriculture will take 
care of itself; it is the dignity of the ag- 
iculturist that is a matter of concern. A 
man may be as honest who guides a pen 
as he who guides a plow; a soft hand is 
not, as from the way people talk some¬ 
times one would think, the correlative 
of a soft heart; because his hands are 
white and the palms are smooth, it does 
not follow that his heart is black and his spirit 
harsh and rough.” The converse is equally true. 
An Invitation to the Ladies. 
Every good housekeeper will be likely in the 
course of her experience to hit upon improve¬ 
ments in the various departments of domestic in¬ 
dustry. The Agriculturist is frequently enriched 
with hints and suggestions obtained in this manner, 
and communicated to its columns for the general 
benefit, and our thanks and those of our readers 
are due to all who have thus aided in making house¬ 
keeping easier or more satisfactory. This field is 
not yet half exhausted, nor even explored. Some 
member of nearly every one of the hundred thou¬ 
sand families constantly visited by this journal, 
could contribute at least one item about cooking, 
washing, mending, furnishing, managing, or other 
of the thousand and one matters coming daily un¬ 
der her practical notice. Will each lady reader 
please consider herself personally invited to give 
a plain, simple account, of any process wherein 
she is specially successful in saving labor or in pro¬ 
ducing a better article than is made by methods in 
common use. If only a single thousand should do 
this, there would be a thousand valuable items for 
all to enjoy and profit by. Let us have them. 
Household Notes for November. 
The winter schools open this month in many sec¬ 
tions. Supply the children with proper books, 
slates, etc. A few shillings or dollars even, expend¬ 
ed in this direction are well invested. We have 
known parents to expend thirty to fifty dollars, or 
more, in getting a child to school during a winter, 
including clothing, etc., and yet lose half the bene¬ 
fit that might be secured, through parsimony in 
withholding a few extra shillings for suitable books 
and stationery. Let every child have a full supply 
of pencils, pens, paper, ink, etc. With these to 
occupy every minute not engaged in study, their 
hands and minds will be kept out of mischief, while 
they will be acquiring taste and skill in sketching. 
If you are a Trustee, don’t economize the wrong 
way by hiring a poor teacher at two-thirds the 
price of a good one, thus losing all your money 
and the precious time of the children. Be sure the 
schoolhouse is comfortable. A quiet, orderly 
school can not be maintained when teacher and 
children are obliged to crowd around the stove to 
keep half warm.Do not let fall fruit waste. 
Feed out rotting apples; dry all you can; make up 
a tub of cider apple-sauce, and another of apple 
butter. Sweet apples make excellent pickles.... 
Examine dried fruit to prevent it from becoming 
wormy. It is stated that sassafras bark put among 
dried fruit will repel worms for years_Don’t de¬ 
pend on the men-folks to get everything out of 
doors ready for winter; they have many things to 
attend to, and some of them are “slack.” See 
that the strawberries are properly covered, the 
tender grapes and raspberries laid down, the aspar¬ 
agus beds and pie-plant roots covered with stable 
manure. Perhaps they have forgotten to bank up 
the young fruit trees to protect them from mice, 
and to spread manure around them that the rich¬ 
ness may be carried to their roots during winter. 
Insist that the men or boys gather a year’s supply 
of good wood, and work it up during the winter.. 
Have whole lights of glass in all the windows, 
bank up the house if needed, see that ventilators 
are all right, siding tight, doors well fitted, latches 
whole, tools sheltered, cellar warm, walls plastered, 
etc — Take good care of vegetables. Have a dark 
place for potatoes, and shelves or barrels for apples ; 
keep beets in sand, bury cabbage in such a manner 
that they may be easily taken out at any time. 
Put pumpkins and squashes in a dry place where 
they will not freeze.Keep Thanksgiving day. 
Fresh Beef from Salt Junk. 
If a piece of salt meat be put in water either in a 
vessel the bottom of which is made of a bladder, 
or in a bag made of untanned skin, and this placed 
in another vessel of water , the salt will be grad¬ 
ually drawn out of the meat, and pass through the 
parchment or skin, but the juices of the meat will 
be left behind in the first vessel. Brine in the 
beef barrel contains a considerable portion of the 
juice of the meat, which may be saved by fill¬ 
ing the inner vessel with it; the salt from both 
brine and meat will pass through the membrane.' 
The process is .to be continued until salt enough is 
extracted to leave the meat and liquor palatable. 
This method is known and practised upon by sail¬ 
ors in the Mediterranean Sea, who enclose their 
salt junk and a portion of the brine in a “water 
skin,” that is, a bag made of goat skin for holding 
water. This is attached to a line, thrown over¬ 
board, and towed through the water, until the meat 
and liquid are freshened to the same degree as sea 
water. The liquid is then used for soup, and the 
meat cooked as wanted. A similar operation may 
be made very useful by soldiers in camp where 
fresh meat is unobtainable, and in families where 
salt junk.forms the staple diet several months in 
the year. This curious phenomenon was discover¬ 
ed by Thomas Graham, of London, who found that 
organic (animal or vegetable) membranes will sep¬ 
arate crystallizable bodies in solution from those 
of a glutinous character. Thus, if the inner vessel 
contains a solution of sugar or salt mixed with 
gum arabic, the crystallizable sugar or salt will 
pass through the membranous skin, and leave the 
gum behind. The process is called diahjsis and 
the apparatus for effecting it, a dialyser. It is ol 
service in chemical and manufacturing operations. 
Salt and other Minerals in the Food. 
“ A Subscriber” asks: “What use the living sys¬ 
tem makes of salt, soda, saleratus and other min¬ 
erals,” and also desires the name of the “ min¬ 
eral constituents of grain.” Several others have 
inquired, why salt is recommended for animals, 
intimating that in their opinion no such mineral 
constituent was needed by them. To take up the 
salt question first: Salt is found in almost all parts 
of the body and is especially a component of 
healthy blood. The following figures show the 
parts of salt in 1000 parts of several different con¬ 
stituents of the human body. In muscles 2, bones 
2%, saliva 1%, bile 3>£, blood mucus 6. It- can¬ 
not be that this should always be present accident¬ 
ally or needlessly. It is believed to exert an im¬ 
portant influence on the solubility of substances 
in the fluids of the body and thus render them 
