I DEC. 13. 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY ’NEWSPAPER. 
ffwjjranfo aift (Sat lira. 
FRUIT GROWIHG IN CALIFORNIA. 
The position that California is to assume as 
a fruit growing State, is undoubtedly a piomi- 
nent one. Everything seems favorable to such 
a conclusion, and the experiments that have 
been made, both by amateurs and nurserymen, 
have resulted in uniform success. The produc¬ 
tion of Apples, Pears, Peaches, Quinces, Grapes, 
<fcc., is a matter of wonderment to those even 
who have emigrated from countries where the 
standard of fruit raising is high, while Oranges, 
Lemons, Pomegranates, etc.—the products of 
tropical climates—are grown in great abund¬ 
ance. In commenting upon the Horticultural 
Department of the late State Fair, the Califor¬ 
nia Farmer remarks as follows : 
“We have never seen the fruit surpassed or 
equaled in any Fair. Apples of large size and 
fine quality were in great abundance. On one 
table we obesrved some large varieties of lem¬ 
ons, oranges, pomegranates and grapes of 
several varieties, from Los Angeles Co., sent by 
Wm. Wolfskill, Esq., of Los Angeles. There 
were fine samples of apples by the same ex¬ 
hibitor, all of them large and beautiful—many 
appeared to be of an extra fine quality. Some 
of the largest and finest quinces we have ever 
seen were upon this table. About the centre 
of the table was a plate of large and beautiful 
apples, named Gloria Mundi. Near these were 
several samples of wax fruit, admirably execut¬ 
ed, by Miss C. A. Smith, of Sacramento, and 
also several varieties of peaches and pears by 
A. P. Smith, of the same place. 
There were many extra large pears. The 
specimens of the Duchesse de Angouleme were 
truly splendid. But the great pears of the 
room, the greatest by far we have ever seen, were 
those exhibited by E. L* Beard, Esq., the Presi¬ 
dent of the Society. There were five on the 
plate, the smallest weighing two pounds and a 
half, the largest two pounds and three quarters. 
One measuring eighteen inches and three quar¬ 
ters one way and sixteen and one-fourth inches 
the other. Around this table were arranged 
many rare flowers, and grapes of many kinds 
were scattered with great profusion the whole 
length of the table. We very much doubt 
whether such a display of fruits could be made 
anywhere out of California on the globe. 
There were some fine strawberries and goose¬ 
berries and figs ; only two or three samples of 
the latter were seen, one from Los Angeles and 
one from San Jose. Some bottles of very 
choice wines were seen in various parts of the 
hall, many of them said to be very fine in 
quality. 
WATERMELONS. 
Eds. Rural :—This year I have raised the 
following four excellent varieties of melons. 
The Orange is a small sized melon ; the vine a 
light green, the flesh red, and the seeds white. 
When ripe the rind separates smoothly from 
the pulp, (with the exception of three longi¬ 
tudinal sutures,) so that the pulp can be readily 
divested of the rind before it is placed on the 
table. It should be planted widely apart from 
other varieties, as it seems quite prone to “ mix,” 
and thus gradually lose its identity. This is a 
delicious variety. 
The South American is a large melon; form 
oval; rind dark and light green in stripes, 
flesh red and seeds white. This is my favorite 
variety for a standard crop. It is a hardy and 
vigorous grower, and very productive. 
The White Mexican is somewhat variable in 
form and color, although with me it has usually 
been of an oval form, and striped with light 
and dark green. The flesh and seeds are white. 
It appears to be of excellent quality, although 
the melon poachers hardly allowed me a fair 
trial of it. W. S. Denny, of Md., and the late 
T. E. Wetmore, of Mich., have spoken very 
highly of this variety in the Rural. 
The Mountain Sweet is of an oval form, and 
the rind a dark green. The seeds are a dark 
gray, and the flesh red. One of the best melons • 
I ever ate was of this variety. 
Burr Oak, Mich., Dec. 3, 1856. Frank Fielding. 
A MONSTER APPLE. 
Daniel Denny, Esq., President of the Ham¬ 
ilton Bank, received yesterday morning, via 
San Francisco, by Wells, Fargo & Co.’s Ex¬ 
press, from his friend, A. D. Barnard, of Cor¬ 
vallis, Oregon Territory, an apple of monstrous 
dimensions. It was 18 inches in circumference, 
and weighed 2 pounds 5% ounces. It is proba¬ 
bly one of the largest, if not the largest, apple 
ever raised. The tree from which it was taken 
was set out where it fruited in 1841, it being 
then two years old from the seed. In 1855 it 
bore 8 apples. In 1856 it had 50 apples, 12 of 
which weighed upwards of two pounds each.— 
The trunk of the tree is only inches in di¬ 
ameter in its largest part, and the fruit is 6 
inches, thus making the fruil 2 inches larger in 
diameter than the tree itself. The apple was 
packed in a sealed tin can, but. when opened 
yesterday morning it was found in a state of 
partial decay, but the form was well preserved. 
It was a great curiosity.— Boston Transcript. 
The Fallen Leaves in a garden, should, 
when at all convenient, be placed about or dug 
in about the bushes and vines which produce 
them. It should be remembered that grape 
vines, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, Ac., 
should have a good application of leaves, ma¬ 
nure, or garden foliage of some kind, to pre¬ 
serve them against the frosts of winter. This 
will also act as an excellent manure. 
MM 
S ' 
HYACINTHS IN GLASSES. 
The Germans and Hollanders have long been 
known as enthusiastic lovers of flowers, and 
among these the Hyacinth has stood prominent 
for years. In the vicinity of Haarlem, acres of 
the bulbs are grown every season. From these 
fields the markets of London, Liverpool, Paris, 
and America are usually supplied. The bulb 
is much the shape and appearance of a mode¬ 
rate sized onion. The foliage consists in long 
thick leaves, rising from the top of the bulb, of 
a deep green color. From the centre of the top 
shoots up a stem, upon which the flowers are 
produced in clusters somewhat pendant and 
bell shaped. They are of red, blue, white and 
yellow, varying with all the different shades 
from pale to those of the deepest dye. When 
in bloom they are very fragrant, hence their 
constant and increasing cultivation. In beds 
and borders they are planted in October and 
November, for which directions have been 
heretofore given. 
The favorite method of cultivation in cities is 
to flower them in glasses in the parlor. To do 
this successfully, good bulbs should be selected, 
such as are best adapted to this kind of growth, 
and placed on the top of the glass, which should 
be filled with rain-water, so as to touch the 
roots of the bulb. Florists practice putting a 
small piece of charcoal in each glass, to keep 
the water phre. The glass should be placed in 
a dark closet for ten or fifteen days, until the 
roots have grown well down into the glass. If 
the top is allowed to grow at the same time 
with the roots, it weakens both, and produces 
poor flowers. After becoming well rooted, they 
may be set in a moderately warm room, where 
tfcere will be no danger of freezing, and where 
there is light, but not too much heat. In a few 
weeks your care will be repaid with a profu¬ 
sion of choice, fragrant flowers, rendering the 
room quite spring-like. 
By a judicious selection of colors, and putting 
down about half a dozen each week for four or 
six weeks, flowers may be secured for a whole 
winter for parlor use, or to relieve the tedium 
and confinement of the sick room. As a cheap 
luxury they cannot be too highly commended, 
and whever known are very much esteemed.— 
They may also be grown and flowered quite as 
well in common green house pots, but this 
mode is not as cleanly as in glass. Our en¬ 
graving was taken from a Hyacinth in full bloom, 
in a glass of new and superior construction, with 
wire supporters for the foliage and flowers- 
The bulbs may generally be had during the fall 
and early winter, of nurserymen and florists in 
all the principal cities of the country, at from 
$1 50 to $3 00 per dozen. 
BANKING AROUND FRUIT TREES. 
We are pleased to see that so many pub¬ 
lishers of papers are now recommending, the 
practice which we have advocated for some, 
years past to guard fruit trees from mice in 
winter. One minute a tree will be time enough 
to be spent in protecting orchards through the 
winter from the ravages of field mice. Any 
common laborer on a farm is competent to the 
task of banking around fruit trees. If they 
were mulched last spring the mulching need 
not be removed. Take a spade and bury it 
and continue on till the bank around each tree 
is made ten or twelve inches high. This will 
drive the mice away to seek better quarters 
unless your trees happen to stand near an old 
wall, where mice do congregate. In such a 
case the bank should be maae higher. 
This banking serves another purpose in addi¬ 
tion to amice-guard—it keeps the tree upright, 
and saves the cost of stakes and the injury 
which withes are likely to inflict when the tree 
is tied to them. This bank should be leveled 
in the Spring, yet not so as to make a dish for 
water to stand in around the tree. No kind of 
tree should stand in water for a single minute 
after a shower is over.— Mass. Ploughman. 
PRUNING. 
There is, perhaps, no subject in horticulture 
so little understood as the principles upon 
which pruning is founded. The object in pru¬ 
ning fruit trees is chiefly to hasten or regulate 
the crop of fruit, and induce or retard the de¬ 
velopment of wood grow th. With reterence to 
the former, more depends upon summer pruning 
and disbudding. Trees are frequently barren 
from excessive wood growth, which is weaken¬ 
ed by pruning during summer. It is a well 
understood fact among scientific cultivators, 
that summer pruning weakens, and winter pru¬ 
ning strengthens the wood growth. Hence the 
practice of nurserymen in pruning young trees 
after the season’s growth is completed, to in¬ 
crease their luxuriance. 
Trees that have arrived at a bearing state, if 
properly managed during growth, would prob¬ 
ably require no winter pruning, unless the re¬ 
moval of large and misplaced branches. In the 
abstract, it seems a negative practice to encour¬ 
age a luxuriant growth, and then cut it down 
in winter. It is quite possible to manage trees 
without having recourse to winter pruning, un¬ 
less Ibr special objects, as already alluded to. 
It is certain that much injury is inflicted by 
the indiscriminate use of the saw and pruning 
knife,'aFthis time, especially on young bearing 
trees. 
Make it a study, next season, to disbud and 
summer prune all growing trees, so that you 
may weaken and check the wood; pruning 
such trees now increases their future vigor, 
since, by diminishing the branches after the 
fall of the leaves, the roots gain a greater pre¬ 
ponderance. On the other hand, it is no less 
necessary to prevent weakness from overbear¬ 
ing. Since the ii troduction of the dwarfing 
system, by grafting on weak growing stocks 
this eiTor has been frequently committed, and 
unprofitable trees have been the result. It has 
also had a tendency to throw discredit on the 
system, by those who from want of knowledge 
and experience, have been unsuccessful in cul¬ 
tivation. There are many kinds, naturally of 
slender growth ; grafting them on a slow-grow¬ 
ing stock induces fruitfulness, and represses 
wood growth to an injurious extent. [Such 
trees should have every blossom picked off that 
appears in spring, all growth carefully retained 
during summer, and pruned down in winter. 
Such treatment will be followed by increased 
vigor, which may be maintained by taking mod¬ 
erate crops, and continued good cultivation. 
So much depends upon individual peculiari¬ 
ties in trees, that it is difficult to form a definite 
rule that would serve as a safe guide to the un¬ 
initiated. Close observation, extended expe¬ 
rience, and, at the least, a slight knowledge of 
physiology, are indispensable requisites to a 
successful cultivation of fruits.— Horticulturist. 
ftjmmt gtte, &t. 
toraratit fcmtxtray. 
HAMS —HOW TO CURE THEM. 
_ t 
A Virginian writes to the Louisville Jour¬ 
nal :—“ Enclosed you will find a celebrated 
recipe for curing bacon, shoulders and hams, 
which you can publish for the benefit of your 
numerous readers, or not, as you deem proper. 
I withhold my nam£ from the fact that I have 
no wish for notoriety of any kind; but being 
an old fashioned Virginian, fond of good living 
and of good bacon in particular, I feel sadly 
the want in my new home of this most essen¬ 
tial element of a man’s comfort in living, and 
have no doubt a strict observance of the recipe 
would produce hams as fine in flavor and as 
sound for keeping as the very choicest Virginia 
bacon. Hams cured by this recipe will keep 
perfectly sweet and sound for six to ten years, 
and took the premium at the last two State Fairs 
held in Virginia: 
Recipe for Curing Hams and Shoulders.— 
Supposing the hogs are killed at daybreak, as 
is usual among farmers, they should bang from 
twenty-four to thirty-six hours before being cut 
up, or until the animal heat has entirely depart¬ 
ed. Upon each joint upon the skin sid’e rub 
well half a teaspoonful of saltpetre; then rub 
salt of a good quality on both sides well, leav¬ 
ing the salt about one-quarter inch thick on the 
flesh side of the piece of meet. After salting, 
they should be packed in a close trough or box, 
tight and close enough to hold brine ; lay them 
in the box with the skin side down, taking cate 
that the pieces do not touch each other, being 
kept separate by the salt. If large hams, let 
them remain in the box undisturbed for five 
weeks ; if small size, for four weeks. Take 
them out, scrape off the salt, rub them all over 
with hickory ashes, hang up in smoke house 
hock down ; smoke moderately for four weeks, 
making only two fires a day, and they are to 
be made of hickory chips. About the first of 
March take down the pieces and rub them again 
with hickory ashes, and hang them again in 
the smoke house where they can remain the 
whole year. Care must be taken not to let the 
hams touch each other in the smoke house. If 
a little green mould should appear on the out¬ 
side it only insures it against spoiling.” 
A piece of candle may be made to burn all 
night in a sick room, or else, where a dull light 
is wished, by putting finely powdered salt on 
the candle until it reaches the black part of the 
wick. In this way, a mild and steady light 
may be kept through the night from a small 
piece of candle. 
Dyeing Ivory. —This substance may be dyep 
or stained black by a solution of brass, and a 
decoction of logwood ; a green, by a solution of 
verdigris ; a red, by being boiled with Brazil 
wood in lime water. 
LIST 03? PATENTS, 
Iss ned from the United Staten Patent Office for the 
week ending Nov. 26, 1856. 
J. Albright, Greenville, Tenn., improvement in machines 
for stuffing horse collars. 
Jas. Anderson, John McLaren and John Bryant, New 
York, improved lathe for cutting fluted mouldings. 
F. L. Bsiley, Boston, improvement in printing presses. 
Stephen K. Baldwin, Guilford, N. H.,improvement on the 
fourneyron turbine wheel. 
Ohas. Bicbell, Baltimore, Md., for process of treating 
feldspar for a manure. 
Thomas G. Clinton, Washington, D. C., improved alco¬ 
hol cooking apparatus. , 
David Gumming, Sorrel Horse, Pa., improvement in 
boxes and axles, journals, &c. 
Wm. Crane, Brooklyn, improvement in machines for 
polishing leather and harness. 
Evan L. Evans, Providence, for improvement in curry 
combs. 
Edwin O. Goodwin, Bristol, Conn., improvement in 
backgammon and checker boards. ; • 
George G. Henry, Mobile, improvement in manufactur¬ 
ing cotton yarns. ZFi 
Wm. W. Hubbard,-Boston, improvement in lathe for 
planing metal. 
A. F. Johnson, Boston, improvement in stitches for 
sewing machines. 
Edward Julier, SharoD, Ohio, improved machino to aid 
in making spokes by hand. 
George Kenny, Milford, N. H., improvement in turning 
circles for carriages. 
M. C. Chamberlin and W. Filkins, of Sheldon, N. Y., 
improved machine for turning boot legs. 
Alexander La Mat, New Orleans, improvement in fire¬ 
arms. LZ-'r-Z. 
Samuel W. Phelps, Cincinnati, improvement in travel¬ 
ing trunks. 
Aurelius M. Purnell, Washington, D. C., improved ap- ; 
paratus for exhausting air from and hermetically sealing 
cans and vessels.,; ‘ 
Jeremiah P. Smith, Hummelstown, Pa., improved disk j 
for shelling corn. ^_ ~ f ,: 
George C. Todd, Lynn, improvement in “ edge keys” for * 
making and polishing the edges of boot and shoe soles. , 
Chas. F. Thieme, Philadelphia, improved gas cock and ‘ 
swinging joint. ' 1 
Uel West and Abuer Mills, New York, improvement in 
the construction of tubular condensers and heaters. 
Wm. Whitely, Jr., Spriugfield, Ohio, improved raking i 
attachment for harvesters. 
Wm. Wright, Hartford, Conn., improvement in adjust- I 
able cut-offs for steam engines. j 
J. Claude White and Robert Hay, Tuckerviile, Pa., im¬ 
proved apparatus for hoisting coal. 1 
Jos. A. Moore and Asahel H. Patch, Louisville, Ky., for 
improved finger bar arrangement for harvesters. 
Thomas A. Chandler, Rockford, Ill., assignor to Harlow 
Herrick, La Grande, Ohio, and Thos. A. Chandler, afore¬ 
said, improvement in hand corn-planters. 
Wm. C. Watson, New York, assignor to himself, Geo. 
H. Woorster and Morris Knight of same place, improve¬ 
ment in sewing machines. 
re-issue. 
^Robert Griffiths, Philadelphia, improvement in nut ma¬ 
chines. Patented October 30,1856. Re issued November 
25,1856. 
ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS. I 
George Crangles, Philadelphia, improvement in rotary 
brick machines. Patented June 3, 1856. Additional im¬ 
provement Nov. 25, 1856. 
George Easterly, West Prairie, Wis., improvement in 
harvesting machines. .Patented Oct, 22,1844. Additional 
improvement November 25, 1856. 
PRACTICAL VALUE OP SCIENCE, 
Some years since a Professor in the Univer¬ 
sity of Tennessee, was knocking and hammer¬ 
ing among the rocks that crop out about Nash¬ 
ville. Some of the people watched him and 
immediately concluded that he was crazy, and 
that it was hardly suitable that he should be at 
large. Tennessee is one of the richest States 
in this Union, in mineral resources. Her mar¬ 
ble is of the finest quality. Some of it is in 
use at the Capitol at Washington. In Coal and 
Iron she has a treasure superior to that of Cal¬ 
ifornia. Her scientific men, discouraged by 
her State Government, and meeting with a chill 
reception by her people, slowly but with en¬ 
thusiastic devotion to the task they are engaged 
in, are disclosing the almost boundless wealth 
■ of the State. 
The discoverer of the Steam Engine has en¬ 
abled England, with a population of twenty- 
five millions, to do work that as many hundred 
millions of men could not have done without; 
in fact, it works by men who eat nothing, and 
work night and day. It is thus that science 
has created the fabulous wealth of tha’ monar¬ 
chy. She is doing the same at this moment for 
our own country. Who can tell the value to 
this nation of the life ot such a, man as Fulton, 
with his steamboats, or even above him, our 
own Franklin, who wrested the lightning from 
heaven, and the sword from the handsot tyrants? 
Who can calculate the value of such a man 
as Professor Morse to the country and to the 
world ? 
Lt. Maury, with painstaking care, addressed 
himself to the work of bringing order out of the 
confusion that marked the log books of thou¬ 
sands of voyages. The sea was mapped out, 
and the track of thousands of vessels defined 
it. From confusion order arises. The paths 
and currents of the ocean are faintly disclosed, 
then certainty follows, and the ship path is 
found to be as marked as a trail, or even as a 
great traveled highway, in some parts of the 
sea. The length of voyages is shortened, and 
the gain is given to stimulate trade and reward 
Commerce, and render more endurable the 
weary ocean life of the mariner and the trav¬ 
eler. Lt. Brooks discovers a way of dropping 
the lead at the bottom of the ocean in depths 
too great to bring up more than a little mud in 
a quill. But that little quill enables us to dem¬ 
onstrate volumes as to the depths and currents 
and inhabitants of the bottom of the seas, 
shows us what they are about, and thus enables 
us to find an undisturbed bed and lay the tele¬ 
graph cable snug and safe at the bottom of old 
ocean. 
The discoveries and investigations of Liebig 
have increased the production and value of all 
t.-. e farms in England, by applying the princi¬ 
ples of analytic chemistry to soils, manures, 
and agricultural results generally. He has 
been worth millions of bushels of wheat al¬ 
ready to Europe. 
A better understanding of the laws of health 
and the causes of disease, has lengthened life, 
in spite of the obstacles presented by the care¬ 
less and reckless disregard of the simplest rules, 
that we all evince in our every-day life. So 
these instances might be indefinitely multi¬ 
plied, and it might be shown that investigations 
in moral and intellectual science are also doing 
| their work, in exposing shams, unveiling delu¬ 
sions, and teaching correct views.— Roch. Am. 
MANUFACTURE OF CAST STEEL. 
1 he following is the description of a method 
of making cast steel, for which a patent has 
been recently granted to G. Brown, of Swin- 
ton, England, and described in the last (Oct.) 
number of Hewton’s London Magazine: 
“ The patentee puts into a common melting 
pot charcoal bar-iron, clipped in pieces, of 
about one and a half inches long, and adds 
thereto good charcoal pig-iron, in the propor¬ 
tion of one part, more or less, by weight of pig- 
iron, to three parts, more or less, of the clipped 
bar-iron. This combination of metals is'melt- 
ed in the usual manner, and then run into iDgot 
molds. By this process cast steel is obtained, 
suitable for any purpose to which cast steel, 
made on the old plan, can be applied,—the 
various qualities of steel required being ob¬ 
tained by slightly varying the proportions of 
the bar and pig-iron. Taking forty pounds 
weight as the standard of an ingot, from seven 
to twelve pounds of pig metal are used, and the 
remainder is made of bar-iron ; these propor¬ 
tions would produce a q^st-steel suitable for 
most purposes. Thus, for cast-steel to be man¬ 
ufactured into edge tools, ten pounds of pig 
metal are added to thirty pounds of bar-iron. 
For table knives, eight pounds of pig metal are 
combined with thirty-two pounds of bar-iron ; 
and for hard steel, twelve pounds of pig metal 
are added to twenty-eight pounds of bar-iron. 
But as almost all irons differ in hardness and 
quality, these proportions must, to a slight de¬ 
gree, be modified according to the judgment of 
the melter.” 
The nature of this improvement consists in 
smelting charcoal bar and charcoal pig iron to¬ 
gether. If the mixture of these two kinds of 
iron can produce good cast-steel, the invention 
is a good one on account of its great simplicity. 
—Scientific American. 
LUXURIOUS RAILROAD CARS. 
The Detroit Advertiser says the cars on the 
Illinois Central Railroad for comfort and con¬ 
venience, excel those on any other road in the 
West. One of them contains six state rooms, 
each room having two seats, with cushioned 
backs, long enough to lie upon. The backs of 
the seats are hung with hinges at the upper edge, 
so that they may be turned up at pleasure, thus 
forming two single berths, one over the other, 
where persons may sleep with all the comfort 
imaginable. In one end of the car is a small 
washroom, with marble washbowls, looking 
glasses, etc. On the opposite side of the car 
from the state-room is a row of seats with re¬ 
volving backs, similar to barbers’ chairs, so ar¬ 
ranged that the occupant may sit straight or 
recline in any easy attitude at pleasure. The 
other five cars have each two or three similar 
state-rooms. 
Iron Cars. —Dr. La Mothe has lately patent¬ 
ed an iron car, which is building at Paterson 
N. J. It will be of the ordinary shape and 
dimensions, being designed to seat sixty pas- 
sengers, and resting on two four wheled trucks. 
The body of the car will consist of strong iron 
bands, twelve or fifteen inches apart, running 
lengthwise and crosswise, and secured by rivets 
at their intersection. This will constitute the 
frame work, which will be covered by sheet 
iron on the flooring, and iron panels with glass 
windows on the side. There is to be no wood 
work whatever about the cars ; but to counter¬ 
act the radiation of heat, and to obviate dan¬ 
gers from accident, the inside will be lined 
throughout with several layers of thick paste¬ 
board and heavy cushions. 
Purificaton of Gas. —Within a short time, a 
process has been discovered, by which the puri¬ 
fication of gas is effected in a very complete 
manner, and the ammonia separated is at once 
in a state in which it can be immediately 
employed as a manure. A mixture of sulphate 
of iron, lime and sawdust is made, which is in¬ 
troduced into the purifiers of the gas works, 
and after having been exposed as long as it con¬ 
tinues to purify the gas sufficiently, itisremov- 
ep, and replaced by another quantity. The 
product is a dark colored, almost black sub¬ 
stance, perfectly granular, and tolerably dry, 
with a strong smell oi gas, which at once be¬ 
trays it source. 
Shovels. —The particular items of our man¬ 
ufacturing industry rather astonish us as we 
review their figures. Take, for example, the 
article of shovels, one of the least important of 
our hardware items. There are annually man¬ 
ufactured in the United States 2,160,000 shov¬ 
els, or about six hundred dozen per day. They 
are made entirely in this country—about one- 
third the number in Massachusetts, the remain¬ 
der in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and other cities. 
The shovel is set down as a civilizer, and our 
progress in its manufacture indicates what we 
are doing for the material improvement of the 
country. 
-♦—*>-■ 
Paper from Sunflowers. —Near Erith a crop 
is about to be gathered of about four acres of 
sunflowers. The seeds will be used for nil, and 
to feed cattle and poultry, as in the south of 
France; but the chief object is to obtain the 
fibre of the stalks for paper-making. If the 
i cultivation succeeds, it is expected to supply 
, abundant materials for fine writing and print- 
• ing papers, as well as for fine and coarse paper- 
, making.— Charleston Mercury. 
> -- 
Mr. Botsford, of Conn., has invented a toy 
i locomotive, which winds up like a watch and 
r runs across the room by its internal propelling 
- power. These toys are costly, but find a ready 
sale, in this fast age. 
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