RHUBARB AS A SPRING RELISH. 
FTER the long winter, when canned fruits have 
been our principal relishes, an eager welcome is 
accorded to that queer vegetable which seems so much 
like a fruit in its uses, aptly called pie-plant. Its acid 
is grateful to the palate, and its medicinal qualities 
are of considerable value to the system. 
Baked Pie-Plant.—A s a variation from the ordinary 
stewed sauce made from this vegetable, try the follow¬ 
ing : Wash and slice the stems as for stewing and put 
into an earthen or granite baking dish with alternate 
sprinklings of sugar, and a very little water, only 
enough to keep it from burning before the juice starts. 
Bake it in the oven until very tender, and it will be 
found a much richer sauce than that made by stewing. 
Rhubarb Short-Cake. —Split the short-cake—an or¬ 
dinary cream biscuit is nice for this use—butter it 
liberally and spread with the baked sauce. Serve with 
sweetened cream. 
Cottage Pudding. —Bake a nice plain cake in layers, 
spread with the sauce, and serve with whipped cream. 
This is very nice. 
Rhubarb Pie. —For pies, it is best to cover the 
sliced pie-plant with boiling water, let it stand a few 
minutes, then drain carefully. Line pie plates with 
pastry, fill with the vegetable, sweeten very gener¬ 
ously, sprinkle with flour and cover with a second 
crust. These pies should be eaten as soon as cool, as 
the crust begins to soak and become soggy very 
soon. A pretty as well as palatable pie or tart may 
be made by baking pastry shells, filling them with 
baked rhubarb and covering with a meringue. Put 
them in the oven till the meringue has set. 
Rhubarb Jelly. —Wash and slice the stalks, but do 
not remove the skin ; add a little water, and boil till 
very tender. Drain through a jelly cloth without 
pressure. Return to the fire and boil 10 minutes; then 
add an equal weight of granulated sugar which has 
been previously heated. Try the jelly at short inter¬ 
vals by dropping a little on a cold plate. When stiff 
enough, remove from the fire and pour into glasses. 
This jelly may be flavored with any fruit juice or ex¬ 
tract and so varied indefinitely. 
Canned Rhubarb. —There is nothing which keeps so 
easily in cans as rhubarb. Fill perfect cans with the 
sliced stalks, crowding them down firmly. Put the cans 
in a cool place and fill with cool water, and leave over 
night. Examine the cans the next day and see that 
they are full to the brim ; then screw on the tops and 
treat like canned fruit. I have used it when two years 
old which was as nice as the fresh vegetable. 
A few years ago there was a great deal of talk 
about rhubarb wine, and acres of the so-called wine- 
plant were put out. The industry did not prove profit¬ 
able and was soon abandoned. I do not remember 
that any attempt was made to convert the juice of the 
plant into vinegar, but I see no reason why it might 
not be done, if it was properly diluted. Rain water is 
said to be best to use in diluting fruit juices when 
acetic fermentation is desired. It would probably be 
necessary to express the juice without cooking the 
fruit, the same as is done with apples, s. A. little. 
Seneca County, N. Y. 
[The reader who asked for rhubarb recipes desires 
authoritative information about the use of rhubarb in 
making vinegar. Have any of our subscribers had 
experience in this line ?— Ed.j 
OMNIBUS WALL-POCKET. 
HAVE the most convenient one that I ever saw. 
This is the way to make it: Procure for the back 
a half-inch board of good sound timber 14 inches wide 
and 3X feet long, which will be long enough for four 
pockets. Cut from half-inch lumber eight end pieces 
the length of the longest side or back, nine inches; 
of the bottom, two inches ; front, seven inches; top, 
four inches. Space the back board for the pockets, 
nail these end pieces to the back board by driving the 
nails through the back board into the end pieces. Now 
cut four pieces two inches wide and of sufficient length 
(14 inches, less the thickness of the two ends) to fit in 
at the bottom of the end pieces, for bottoms to the 
pockets ; and nail through the end pieces into the ends 
of the strips. 
Now from tliree-eighths inch stuff cut eight strips 
two inches wide and fourteen inches long ; nail these 
on to the fronts of the end pieces, one at the top and 
one at the bottom, making the fronts of the pockets. 
They are pretty made of any kind of wood finished in 
the grain, and can be done in this way: sandpaper 
very smooth and apply three coats of hard oil, allowing 
it to become dry between each two coats. The white 
wood cases that one’s grocer receives filled with three 
paper boxes of soda crackers cut up very nicely, and 
can be bought for 20 cents each. When the wall pocket 
is finished, fasten it to the wall with screws. Round- 
headed nails or screws make a nice finish for fasten¬ 
ing the front strips. e. k. terry. 
IS ARBOR DAY WORTH OUR WHILE? 
T never rains roses ; when we want roses, we must 
plant more trees,” said George Eliot. 
Yet, so far as the far-reaching purposes of Arbor 
Day are concerned, Garden and Forest is convinced 
that it is not enough that we plant trees, but that it is 
of the highest importance how we plant them. It sug¬ 
gests that the teaching of the children in connection 
with Arbor Day should begin with an object lesson in 
the proper method of planting trees. This it outlines 
thus : 
“ In order to plant them to the best advantage, the 
ground should have been prepared last fall. The holes 
to receive the roots should have been dug wide and 
deep and the ground shoveled back again and left for 
the winter to settle, and in the center of this a fresh 
excavation should be made large enough to receive 
the roots in their natural position, and about them the 
fine earth should be carefully sifted and rammed down 
tightly, so that the roots and the earth should come 
into the closest contact.” 
Another sensible suggestion is that it be made a part 
of the ceremony of the day to examine all trees pre¬ 
viously planted, and report on their condition. This 
will be pretty certain to show whether the enthusiasm 
which accompanied the setting of the trees has been 
fostered, or whether it has been genuine, because the 
tree will show whether its growth has been fostered 
by proper care after the initial work. 
There have been numerous queries of late as to how 
many of our people, how large a proportion of them, 
really love trees; some have not hesitatated to say that 
no one will ever truly love trees who has not had his 
attention fixed on them in childhood ; whose love for 
them has not grown as he himself has grown, and sent 
its roots down into the very depths of his nature. The 
money value of a standing tree even is a thing not 
often enough considered. In many a suburban place, 
a building lot with one handsome tree is considered to 
be worth $25 to $50 more than its treeless neighbor. 
The periodical above quoted goes so far as to found 
our possible forest policy on the well or ill done work 
of Arbor Day, asserting : 
“We shall never have a national forest policy that 
is of any value until every farmer in the country has 
been instructed from his youth up in the care of his 
wood lot, and every dweller in town has been brought 
in the same way to have a life-long interest in the care 
of trees along the public highway.” 
With this broad view of the value of the opportu¬ 
nities of Arbor Day, it is urged that it be not thought 
sufficient to obtain any man who can talk fluently to 
add his voice to the Arbor Day exercises; but that men 
who love trees, and who can turn every sentiment 
and act of the day to good account in implanting that 
love in childish hearts, in implanting genuine, loving 
enthusiasm there, shall give their aid to this cause. 
Yet, in spite of some failures to make the most in 
every instance, of the opportunities of Arbor Day, 
that it is believed to have substantial value is shown 
by a late editorial in the Sunday-School Times. We 
should scarcely expect a paper of thi* class, devoted 
exclusively to the work of the Sunday-schools, to 
turn aside to discuss Arbor Day. Yet in one of its 
most practical departments, viz., “Ways of Working,” 
we find the suggestion that the Sunday-school as well 
as the day-school, have its Arbor Day thus set forth : 
“It is a method worth the consideration of many 
Sunday-schools, the setting apart of a day upon which 
the children, as a Sunday-school, may show the spirit 
of Arbor Day. If the children as day-school scholars 
have enough public spirit to eDjoy sharing the cere¬ 
monies of an Arbor Day appointed by the Governor 
of their State, and if they gladly beautify, not only 
their own door-yards, but the public parks, the village 
common, and even the roadsides, an appeal to them, 
as Sunday-school children, to beautify the surround¬ 
ings of their own home church, ought to meet the 
heartiest kind of a response. Perhaps, also, there 
will be the grounds of the rectory or parsonage, which 
the Sunday-school will have particular interest in 
adorning. Nor would it be difficult for a missionary 
spirit to show attention of this kind to other people 
in the congregation, or to neighboring charitable 
institutions and homes.” 
All this tends in the direction of implanting in the 
coming generation a love of shrubs and trees, and a 
habit of daily observation of their beauties, to which 
the present generation i9 a dull-minded stranger. It 
is really almost adding a new faculty to the minds of 
our children ; a faculty which, developed from youth, 
will give joy throughout the whole life. This is 
indeed well worth our best efforts. 
SOME BANK ACCOUNTS. 
SEE a family who commenced life nearly 30 years 
ago with a small farm worth $430 then. At the 
end of four years they welcomed a baby boy, and later 
another, a little girl, and still another boy. Feeling 
that these children would need to depend on them¬ 
selves, the first thing was to educate them. To that 
end the mother often lent a hand at outside work, 
where a child must be kept from school if she did not. 
While still little ones, they were taught to work ; and 
a few pennies for picking up a barrel of apples made 
the work easier. Then they picked berries, nuts, kept 
a few hens, and had a patch of land to raise whatever 
they pleased. As they grew older, they found outside 
work during vacations. Early in life they began to 
have a bank account. At 21 they each had $1,000 at 
their disposal, and were ready to begin their life work. 
The oldest is a mechanical engineer; the second a 
farmer; the third, not yet 21, talks of a future hen 
farm. The daughter is a successful teacher and has 
also learned to bank part of her income against a time 
of need. The parents now have 40 acres instead of 
six, and feel that, although they have helped their 
children to help themselves, they will be depend¬ 
ent on them only for love and filial care as they advance 
in life. I see other boys—whose parents lived much 
less frugally all these 30 years—commencing at 21 to 
save the first dollar that they can call their own, and 
I think if parents could only see what their children 
could accomplish by littles through childhood and 
youth, they would gladly give them a better chance. 
a farmer’s wife. 
Heliotrope In Millinery. —Especially perhaps in con¬ 
nection with millinery, does each large city firm 
strive for striking or unique attractions. More attrac¬ 
tive perhaps than anything else in New York show 
windows just now (judging from the crowds of women 
constantly before it) is the heliotrope window of a 
large importing firm in the heart of the shopping dis¬ 
trict. “ Heliotrope,” be it known, ranges in tone 
from palest mauve and lilac to true heliotrope and 
royal purple. In this heliotrope window are ribbons, 
and plumes, and aigrettes all in deep purple; there are 
enameled pins of the sort known to our grand¬ 
mothers ; there are pansies in royal purple and sweet 
peas in pink and mauve, not restricted in size like our 
garden beauties, but three inches across whenever 
the milliner chooses. There is even heliotrope wheat. 
Strange to say, the only thing absent is clusters of the 
heliotrope blossom. Nothing low in price, or common 
is there, and it looks as though Madame Haut Ton had 
fallen upon love with heliotrope. Doubtless this 
brave showing will be somewhat lessened in effect 
when abstracted from the window, piecemeal, for the 
bedeckment of women—lovely in theory, but often 
very average in fact. And we may well doubt whether 
all these treasures will ever again appear in surround¬ 
ings so harmonious and beautiful as at present. Unfor¬ 
tunately, the average woman cannot wear heliotrope 
harmoniously, because of innate defects in her own 
permanent color furnishings, both physical and mental. 
The Competitive Papers. —It is always tLe last few days 
devoted to any competition that bring in the greater 
proportion of the articles; yet we are almost ready to 
believe that our young people are noFso quick as their 
parents to grasp such opportunities. At the date of 
the present writing, only three days before the close 
of the competition on “ Why I Love the Farm ?” and 
“ The Eldest Daughter,” we have fewer papers in 
hand than in any previous competition. This fact 
may be of encouragement to some of those who have 
entered, as, generally speaking, the fewer the papers 
the better the chance of success. Still, we hope the 
last three days may change the face of affairs to a con¬ 
siderable extent; at present it is pretty nearly an 
even thing between the two topics. No papers have 
been examined as yet, and we hope our young folks 
will try to have patience. There must necessarily be 
some two or three weeks’ delay between the receipt of 
the latest, and their publication; then, after the pub¬ 
lication, there must be further delay while receiving 
the votes. Still, it was thought that this method of 
deciding on the merits of the papers might prove the 
most pleasing to all concerned. We hope that our 
young people have some good ideas for us on these 
topics, as they are important ones. 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Castorla, 
When she was a Child, she oried for Castorla. 
When she became Miss, she clnng to Castorla, 
When she had Children, she gave them Castorla. 
