1875 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
227 
responsible parties who will properly represent its 
quality. For use in the dry state, flour is found to 
be the" best to mix with the poison, as it adheres to 
the leaves better than plaster, which is sometimes 
used. With the pure poison one part to twenty of 
flour is sufficient. Some kind of a sifting arrange¬ 
ment must be provided, with a long handle. An 
apparatus which can be readily made by any tin 
worker was shown in the Agricultui'ist last month, 
p. 187; of course some other contrivance that will 
answer the purpose may be substituted; even a 
wide-mouthed bottle, with muslin tied over the 
mouth has been successfully used. Always keep 
to the windward, and by every possible precaution 
avoid breathing the dust. It takes but a little, 
properly applied, and even distribution is of more 
consequence than a large quantity. In applying 
Paris-green in the wet way, remember that it is not 
soluble in water, but is only diffused through and 
suspended in it, hence it must not be allowed to 
settle to the bottom of the vessel. Frequent and 
thorough stirring must be attended to. A tablespoou- 
ful of the poison to an ordinary pailful of water is 
the quantity used. It may be applied by means of 
a wateringrpot, or by the use of some of the various 
garden force-pumps sold by seedsmen and at the 
implement stores. In using be careful not to wet 
the skin with the liquid, and if it gets upon the 
hands or elsewhere, have water near by to wash it 
off at once. When a force-pump is used, the liquid 
can be kept stirred by now and then directing the 
stream into the pail containing it. The chief use 
of Paris-green is to kill the Colorado potato-beetle 
and the cotton-worm ; it has been successfully ap¬ 
plied in the liquid way, to kill canker-worms on 
apple and other trees, and has been used also on 
squash and other vines in the garden. Of course 
it will not be proper to apply it to cabbages or other 
plants of which the foliage, or other parts which 
can retain the poison on the surface, is eaten. We 
repeat that Paris-green is a most dangerous poison 
and must be used with a full knowledge of this fact. 
Store it where by no accident others can have ac¬ 
cess to it. Use it in such a manner that no harm 
can come to the operator. See that the pails and 
other vessels are used for nothing else. Finally, 
do not use it at all if any other means for destroy¬ 
ing insects will accomplish the end. 
- — i o ■ —- 
Setting Stakes. —The usual method of setting 
bean-poles, grape-stakes, and other garden sup¬ 
ports, is slow, but 
where there are 
only a few of them, 
it will not pay to 
have a special ap¬ 
pliance for the pur¬ 
pose. In France, 
where the grape 
vines are largely 
supported by 
stakes, th ey use a 
sort of clamp or “clevis,” as they call it, which 
greatly facilitates the operation of setting them. 
The implement itself is made of iron, of the shape 
shown in fig. 1, and provided with straps to fasten 
it. As there the laborers wear wooden shoes or 
sabots ,the clevis 
is made large 
enough to work 
with t h o s e. 
The manner of 
using it is seen 
in fig. 2 ; the 
stake or pole 
being caught 
between the 
sole piece and 
the arm, can be 
held with great 
firmness, if the 
operator pro¬ 
perly manages the upper end of it, and the force of 
the legj aided by the weight of the body, pushes 
the point into the soil; a slight turn of the foot 
will loosen the grip, and allow another hold to be 
taken, if need be, to set the stake still deeper. 
THIS MttJSffiMLlE). 
(For other Household Items , see “Basket ” pages). 
Home Topics. 
BY FAITH ROCHESTER. 
Learning to Read Early.—The Other Hide. 
Every question has two sides, though to be sure, 
one may be the wrong side. There are two sides 
to this subject of early reading lessons, and doubt¬ 
less there is truth on both sides. I am now pre¬ 
pared to listen more favorably than once I would, 
to the following testimony from a mother.—“ I am 
quite in favor, so far as my own experience goes, 
of having healthy children learn to read early. G. 
will not be seven years old until May, but it is much 
pleasanter of an evening to have him interested in 
a book than to have him playing about. He enjoys 
study, and I think will make a good scholar.” 
From this standpoint—the mother’s present ease 
—I am perfectly certain that my friend is right. 
Oh ! don't I know it! My faith in the new educa¬ 
tion—in the theory of the kindergarten, and in the 
cultivation of a child’s faculties in the natural order 
of their spontaneous development—continues to 
strengthen ; but I sometimes feel, in actual experi¬ 
ence, as though I have been trying to put new wine 
into old bottles, and I seem to see the bottles burst¬ 
ing and the rich wine wasting in consequence. All 
this in moments of discouragement, and then I 
think how much easier it would be for me if I had 
checked the children’s questions more, had dis¬ 
couraged their appeals to me for sympathy—in fact 
had “turned them off,” systematically, from the 
first, to keep their thoughts and queries to them¬ 
selves. They “tire me to death,” sometimes, and 
probably my indulgence of their questions and 
communications has helped to make them children 
of the “ never-weaning ” kind. No philosopher 
need suppose that a minister’s work and a teach¬ 
er’s work and a writer’s work exhausts the nervous 
force so that considerable rest or absolute relaxa¬ 
tion from such work is necessary to health, while 
a mother can bear with impunity almost constant 
drafts upon her nervous power, in the way of plan¬ 
ning, (as well as executing), all manner of cleans¬ 
ing clothing, finding question answering and amuse¬ 
ment-finding labors among her children—all these 
even if she had no other duties. But most mothers 
have many other labors in addition to these. 
So you see, if a mother has several children and 
a variety of cares, and no chance to get away alone 
and rest a little while each day, it must seem very 
comfortable to have the little ones quietly reading 
instead of playing about. First catch your 
“healthy children” though. Be sure that they 
have no tendency to precocity, no nervousness 
either natural or resulting from disease, and then 
they may read as early and long as they choose, for 
they will not be likely to choose too much. 
The Children’s Feet. 
I refer to the barefooted children, among whom 
you may count my own, on any warm summer day 
when they are living in the country. Can anybody 
tell me what there is in a little boy’s constitution 
which makes it safer for him to go with cold, wet 
feet than for a little girl to do the same ? I meet 
with people who seem to suppose that it is quite 
silly to have a boy wear shoes and stockings on 
days when they are themselves wearing woolen 
stockings for comfort, and when they would not 
allow their little girls to go barefooted. So long as 
the boys’ (or girls’) feet and hands have a healthy 
degree of warmth, I feel no concern about them, 
whatever the thermometer may say; but when I 
find the feet and hands cold, no matter what may 
be the month of the year, I know that something 
is going wrong, or will soon go wrong with the 
general health unless greater warmth is secured. 
It is a bother to have children wear their shoes and 
stockings a few hours in the morning and then take 
them off as the heat of the day comes on, but I am 
not going to let Children eat their breakfasts in a 
blue and chilled condition. 
They tell me that folks never used to take such 
pains with their children, and that those children 
were healthier than these. Very likely. I noticed 
what “ Walks and Talks ” said about his pigs. Did 
he not say that the better breeds cannot endure 
such neglect as common pigs do not seem to mind ? 
Is not this the fact with all improved stock ? Do 
not such animals require more careful nurture while 
young, and better reward good care in maturity ? 
Is not this true algo of seed in all its higher or more 
improved varieties? There is a similar difference 
between man in his savage, and man in his civil¬ 
ized condition. Herbert Spencer says that, “ when, 
the constitution being sound enough, exposure 
does produce hardness, it does so at the expense of 
growth.” I fancy that one reason why our children 
have not such sound constitutions as we could 
wish, is because of hardships and exposures during 
childhood of the generations preceding them. 
All this may seem an out of place “topic’’for 
June, but there are cool, rainy days, and many cool 
mornings and evenings in this month, when delicate 
children go about in a chilly condition. 
Somethin" About Rag Carpets, 
Not much, however, for the very good reason 
that I know but little about rag carpets. I have 
one “ on the works,” and am doubtful whether to 
go on with it or to sell it to the rag-man. Of course, 
it pays some folks to make rag carpets, but it cer¬ 
tainly will not pay every woman. I have been ac¬ 
customed to speak of myself as having “made” 
one rag carpet—a very good one, too, and one that 
has done steady service for ten years, and is not 
yet entirely cast aside. I fancy now that my 
mother has sometimes smiled in her sleeve when I 
have spoken of that carpet as one that “I made.” 
She it was who cut nearly every rag, and sewed the 
same proportion of them, who did all of the color¬ 
ing and calculating, while I only brought out things 
that would do to cut up, (about half of which I 
should not now think of cutting into carpet rags 
until they had done more service as garments), plan¬ 
ned the stripe, and paid the weaver. That was 
done when I was getting ready to go to housekeep¬ 
ing. Two years ago the same dear hands cut up 
another lot of rags for me, and I have thought my¬ 
self almost in possession of another new rag carpet. 
But those rags are made largely of children’s old 
clothes, and are shorter and poorer than those that 
went into the first carpet. I had them littering 
around a few days last week, and put them away 
as a bad job, it is so much slower business than I 
expected. I shall have to hire them sewed, at not 
less than twelve and a half cents a pound. So it 
will cost over three dollars to get twenty-five 
pounds sewed. Then there will be the cost of the 
work and the weaving. Are rag carpets cheap ? 
I had heard that a pound of rags yields a yard of 
carpeting. 1 think this is a very common estimate, 
but my neighbor, whohas a beautiful rag carpet on 
her sitting-room, (beautiful at least by comparison 
with other rag carpets), tells me that a pound of 
rags to a yard makes a poor sleazy carpet in her 
opinion. She used a pound and a half to a-yard. 
The filling, (or rags), m her carpet might be woven 
all in one long thread for aught one could tell by 
the piecing, so smoothly are the rags sewed and 
woven. She shewed me how she sewed all of her 
rags, which are mostly cotton, nine old sheets hav¬ 
ing been used up in thirty yards. She lapped one 
over the other about three-fourths of an inch, then 
doubled the lapped place and sewed three stitches 
before fastening her thread—the first a back-stitch 
to hold down the lapping end, then two stitches 
running, and then the fastening of the thread. Now 
she found the doubled and lapped place too thick, 
so every time she joined two strips, she picked up 
her scissors and cut away a scallop from the thicker 
portion, so as to leave the joined place no thicker 
than the rags on each side of it. I was interested 
to see just how a person who was brought up to 
do everything in the best manner possible, thought 
that carpet rags should be sewed, but I 6urely do 
not expect any one to sew my short carpet rags in 
that way for twelve and a half cents a pound 1 
Nor would I probably take that pains myself. 
“ She was five years making that carpet,” said 
the lady’s husband. 
“Men never like rag carpets till they are done,” 
