1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
187 
is only about half the size of the more common 
pea “bug,” its general color being a tawny gray. 
Of course with both the pea and bean weevil, the 
only safety is in sowing none but sound seeds, but 
unless a whole neighborhood will agree to this, 
however careful one may be, he will be supplied 
from a less cautious neighbor; scalding will kill 
the insect without injuring the germination of the 
seeds, and it is said by White (Gardening for the 
South) that if seed peas, or beans, when they are 
gathered, be stored in bottles or jars with a tea¬ 
spoonful of spirits of turpentine, and kept tightly 
closed, the vapor of the turpentine will kill the in¬ 
sects without injury to the vitality of the germ. 
-— •——— -*—- 
Little Garden Helps. 
Spear, Norfolk County, Mass., sends 
two appliances that he finds very 
handy in the garden. One is a simple 
seed sower, made from an empty 
fruit or mustard can, shown so plain¬ 
ly in fig. 1, as to need but little ex¬ 
planation. A hole is punched in the 
bottom of the can, of a size to allow 
the seed to drop properly, and a han¬ 
dle is fitted to the edge, made of a 
green stick of convenient length; 
this is split for about two inches, the 
edge of the can slid into the split, 
and two or three large tacks driven 
through to keep the handle steady, 
finishes the job. As these are read¬ 
ily made from cans that one is glad 
to get rid of, several, with holes 
of different sizes to suit different 
seeds, may be kept on hand. Mr. S. finds it better 
to make the hole in the bottom of the can rather 
small at first, and enlarge it by ream¬ 
ing until just the proper size is hit. 
In use the drills are first made ready, 
he then puts a small quantity of seed 
into the can, and walking at a mode¬ 
rate pace, is able to shake the seed 
out very evenly. His other device 
is one for dusting currant bushes with 
white hellebore, or for distributing 
any other dry powder that it is de¬ 
sired to apply to other plants. It is 
a cylinder of perforated tin, 21 inches 
in diameter, and 10 inches long; this 
has a fixed bottom, with a socket (a) 
to receive the end of a handle of 
convenient length, and a brace to 
strengthen the socket; the cover, &, 
fits sufficiently close to keep its place 
while in use. One living at a 
distance from a tinsmith, could 
readily contrive a duster from a fruit can; a 
wooden cover would answer as well as a tin one. 
Budding the Hickory. 
“ W. F. R.,” Mayport, Florida, writes: “In a for¬ 
mer number of the Agriculturist , I find an article on 
grafting the hickory, stating that “ as far as people 
in general are concerned, it may be regarded as 
impracticable. My experience is as follows: About 
a year ago I budded a pecan into a vigorous hick¬ 
ory sprout of the same season’s growth. The bud 
remained dormant until the following spring, when 
the sprout was cut back to the bud. A shoot grew 
from the bud last summer, which measured nearly 
ten feet. This shoot has also thrown out seven 
laterals, measuring from two to four feet each. 
Last winter I cut down a number of my hickories, 
some of them measuring nearly a foot through, 
and this summer have budded the sprouts from 
them with the pecan. I use annular budding, i. e., 
a ring of hark with a bud upon it, put in place of a 
similar ring removed from the stock. It is very 
seldom a bud fails to take, and the few failures I 
find are occasioned by a small grub, which 
works between the bud and the stock, which can 
be prevented by the application of grafting wax, 
thie i(0)in§Kif©m 
jpgr" (For other Household Items , see “Basket ” pages). 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
All of the time I see a plenty that might be said 
about various household works and ways, but some 
topics wait from month to month until more study 
or observation can be given to them. Then some¬ 
times 1 find myself, as to-night, too much engrossed 
with my own cares—planning work for the seam¬ 
stress who comes to-morrow, wondering if this 
howling March storm will give way before morning 
and allow us to undertake the washing already de¬ 
ferred two days, trying to see how it is possible to 
get ready to remove to other quarters next week, 
listening to hear whether baby coughs again, and 
what kind of a cough it istoo much preyed upon 
by such cares as these to get fairly started upon any 
topic of general interest. In order to get myself 
started, I quote from a recent letter from 
A Woman of the “Improving Hind,” 
who writes : “ You will think I have improved 
some when I tell you that we have slept with the 
windows open all winter, and the children have 
never suffered so little from colds as this winter. 
We have no stove in the south-east bed-room, and 
like it better so. As soon as we are out of our beds 
in the morning, I open them, and open the outside 
door in my room and the windows, for an hour or 
so. It is so cold in my room at night that a cup of 
water will freeze solid, but we all get along with it 
nicely. None of us have frozen noses yet, which 
is almost a wonder. 
“ My husband used to think he could not sleep 
with a window open in moderate weather without 
catching cold, but there is no trouble now. I am 
trying to cook more wholesome food too. I do not 
make cake at all, and pie only once a week. I hope 
to learn to make many things both palatable and 
wholesome. My boarder, instead of being a hin¬ 
drance to me, is a help in every good word and work. 
The children have been well all winter, and have 
improved in disposition since our change of diet.” 
No Cake. 
The “ change of diet ” referred to in this letter 
would not be considered very radical by many. All 
sorts of good food, including meats and fine flour 
breads, are used, but plainly cooked and eaten with 
regularity, or only at meal times. The abolition of 
the “pan of cookies ” alone is a great improvement 
upon the old way of doing. Even plain molasses 
cookies, used for lunches between meals, work 
much mischief to the health of the family. All 
you housekeepers who dare to live without dough¬ 
nuts, or cookies, or jumbles “on hand,” please 
hold up your hands, and I wish I could count how 
many there are. Some housekeepers dare not be 
found without some sort of cake in the house, for 
fear of unexpected company; some fear their 
boarders, if so unfortunate as to have them ; some 
their hired help, and some their husbands. These 
same husbands sometimes iuveigh against cake as 
dyspepsia-breeding, but the wives observe that 
these lecturers eat no less cake on that account, and 
they go on trying to please their husbands by cook¬ 
ing those things which the men evidently relish. 
I do not feel at all sure that plain cake ought to 
be entirely abolished from our tables. On this 
point I would like considerable testimony. I have 
never made much cake for my family, since it in¬ 
cluded children, because I found by experience 
that cake did not agree with them. One of its 
worst as well as surest results is the destruction of 
their appetite for simple nutritious fare. The 
nerves of taste crave something more tickling. I 
have noticed though, that the more one goes with¬ 
out cake or other food of this kind, the more 
plainly one can perceive its ill effect when eaten. 
_ I used to think this an argument in favor of the 
free use of cake, and many—perhaps most people— 
would think so, but I am reminded of a former 
neighbor of ours, a German, who used to give his 
four-year-old son a little whiskey every morning in 
order to accustom him to it, so that he would not 
Mr. J. H. 
sketches of 
Fig. 1. 
Fig. 2. 
be easily upset by its use when older. I have no¬ 
ticed, too, that the more we accustom ourselves to 
pure air, the more easily we are unfavorably af¬ 
fected by bad air, and the more perceptibly injured 
by close rooms or a foul atmosphere of any kind. 
I also see that the more we are accustomed to gen¬ 
uine culture and refinement, the more unpleasantly 
all narrow-mindedness and coarseness makes itself 
felt. Also in morals, the pure and honest are 
pained and sickened by deeds which seem well 
enough to those habituated to them. In all these 
things there may be some analogy. Anyhow, I 
have never discovered that our health suffered 
from lack of cake. Writers say that the nourish¬ 
ment it contains,(for surely flour, eggs, milk, butter, 
and sugar, are all nourishing, each in its own way and 
degree), is in too concentrated a form to serve as 
nutritious food, and that its tendency is to clog the 
digestive organs. 
Tile Scli«i.lina«tei’s Trunk. 
I never could have written this charming book, 
but if I could have done it, how I would have 
liked the task ! The simple, natural style is very 
charming to me, but the sentiments themselves— 
to them I cry heartily “ amen and amen ! ” 
You see, it is a kind of household reform book, 
in the guise of an odd sort of story—not story 
either, but just what it purports to be in its full 
title: “ Papers Found in the Schoolmaster’s 
Trunk.” What the schoolmaster wrote his papers 
for, I do not know, unless just to free his mind— 
one of the best of reasons perhaps. He seems, 
like most of Mrs. Diaz’s fictitious characters, very 
natural or real, and I find myself wishing to com¬ 
pare notes with Mr. McKimber, on several points 
pertaining to domestic science. I quite agree with 
him that no science is more important. 
What the regular “ woman’s-righters ” are think¬ 
ing about, I can not see, for no mention of Mrs. 
Diaz and her sturdy blows at woman’s wrongs, have 
I ever seen among their writings, except a few 
lines by “ T. W. II.” She seems to me one of the 
best workers we have, for the genuine emancipa¬ 
tion of woman, with much broader views of the 
whole subject, and much deeper insight of its full 
meaning, than most speakers and writers upon the 
subject. Oh dear ! How I do want to quote from 
this book!—for though I believe the same things, I 
could never “ put ” them in the same way. Though 
I “ shake in my shoes ” for fear of the Editor, when 
I undertake quotations, I will venture just a little : 
“ And the idea occurred to me that woman might 
not have been created mainly for the purpose of get¬ 
ting three meals a day. If she were, thought I, what 
a waste ! for certainly a mere meal-getter might 
have been fashioned out of cheaper material.” 
“ Since my eyes have been opened, however, 
these delicacies taste too strong of the toil to be 
relishable ; for I see that the rows of pies on the 
outtery shelves, the mounds of cake, the stacks of 
doughnuts, do not come there by any magical 
‘slight o’ hand,’ but are wrought out of the very 
life of poor Mrs. Fennel—literally of her very life.” 
“ Indeed this prying into domestic affairs has made 
me surprised twice. First, at the amount of phy¬ 
sical labor a woman has to perform ; second, that 
she can carry so many things on her mind at one 
time, or rather that her mind can act in so many 
directions at one time, and so quickly.” 
Mr. McKimber became deeply interested in his 
“ science,” and studied different persons as his 
“ specimens.” One day he spent an hour in watch¬ 
ing Mrs. Fennel, at her work as cook, seamstress, 
tailor, instructor of a learner in house-work, physi¬ 
cian for a sick neighbor, judge when the children 
come with a dispute, preacher on brotherly love to 
the quarrelling little ones, teacher, trader with a 
tin peddler—all in an hour before dinner, which 
comes daily as the grand climax, which mnst be 
kept in mind through all the other operations. 
Then he watched Mr. Fennel for an hour, while 
the latter pursued his daily employment as a car¬ 
penter. Mr. Fennel spent his time quietly plaueing 
and grooving boards. “ His movements were dis¬ 
tinguished by an entire calmness.” “As far as 
hindrances were concerned, he might have shoved 
that plane until doomsday, and with a temper 
gmooth and even as his own boards.” 
