MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
HINTS AND GLEANINGS. 
Lawns and Grass-plats. —We have found ] 
it a much easier and quicker way to make a i 
lawn, by properly turfing it, than by sowing j 
seed, and any after treatment. Newly sown ; 
grass very seldom grows evenly — some roots < 
are much stronger than others—and a smooth 
lawn requires years for its establishment. But , 
first prepare the ground as caretully and well 
as for garden culture, smooth it properly, and 
clear it from all roots and weeds. Then select 
a good spot for cutting the turf,—close-grazed, 
long-seeded, waste land is the best. AY ith an 
edging-iron, or other sharp instrument, mark 
off the turf into strips three feet long and one 
foot wide, cutting down perpendicularly at least 
two inches deep. Then, with a turfing-iron, or , 
very sharp spade, cut this turf up, one and a 
half inches thick, rolling each j%eee up sepa¬ 
rately. Lay it down orderly and carefully, and 
go over it with a beater or roller, and you will 
soon have a fine lawn, with a smooth, well 
covered surface. 
Radishes Instead of Weeds. —By sowing 
a small quantity of radish seed over the vege¬ 
table garden when it is first plowed or spaded, 
and repeating the sowing whenever there is a 
vacant space, as the soil is stirred afterward, 
one may have, according to the Am. Agricul¬ 
turist, “ plenty of good radishes for a shilling.” 
All for which there is not room, should be 
treated as weeds, and cut up at once, but there 
is generally plenty of unoccupied ground, not 
needed for the few weeks which a growth of 
radishes require. _ 
Insect Bests. —Backward as the season is— 
the buds on fruit trees just beginning to start— 
the insects are up and doing. Every bud on a 
dwarf apple tree in our yard, was covered more 
or less with a minute dark green aphis, and they 
seemed eating their way into them quite rapid¬ 
ly. Last year, tobacco water stopped them. 
Caterpillars’ eggs seem very numerous on all 
kinds of fruit trees. It is time to commence 
the war of extermination. 
Early Vegetables. —Cucumbers, Melons, 
Lima Beans, etc., may be started on pieces of 
inverted turf in a sheltered situation, and, as 
soon as the weather is permanently warm, be 
removed and planted in the garden. Two or 
three weeks may thus be gained, if attended to 
in time. It is important to the perfection of 
Lima beans particularly, that they get an early 
start, but if planted in the open ground they 
are very likely to rot, as we have found to our 
disappointment. 
Farmer’s Garden. —Old farmers, yfmng far¬ 
mers, and farmer’s boys, do not neglect the 
garden. Give some of your spare time to it 
and spare a day if you have not enough leisure 
to attend to it properly. Look kindly and 
helpfully on all the efforts of the women-folks 
for its improvement. It will pay—pay thrice— 
in pleasure, health, and profit.—r>. 
CULTIVATION OF ONIONS. 
Eds. Rural: —Some acquaintance with the 
manner of cultivating onions in Connecticut, 
enables me to furnish the information desired 
in a late number of your paper. It is derived 
from practical, not theoretical, sources, and I 
hope will be of use to many of your readers. 
The Soil and its Preparation. —A sandy 
loam of a dark color, is probably the best soil; 
though any loamy soil will answer. It should 
be manured freely, and then thoroughly plowed 
and harrowed until in very fine tilth. All 
stones and sod should be removed, that the 
drill may find no obstruction in sowing the seed. 
Cultivators do not generally plow very deep,— 
usually six or seven inches,— but the fact that 
better crops are obtained after carrots, shows 
that a deeper soil is useful. Prepare the 
ground and sow the seed as early in the spring 
as practicable. 
The best manure is that from stables where 
the horses arc fed freely with grain, well de¬ 
composed, so that it may be thoroughly mixed 
with the surface soil. Leached ashes also are 
very valuable—more so than unleached. Any 
good compost manure may be used successfully, 
but that pretty active and quickly operating is 
the best. 
Raising and Planting the Seed. —Those 
who raise their own seed, have found it to their 
interest to select the best shaped and most 
desirable onions for that purpose, and have j 
thereby much improved the product. The 
Silver Skin is now the most popular onion. 
The Red is preferred in foreign markets, the 
White is milder, but does not keep as well.— 
From three to four pounds will grow an acre— 
and it is planted with a common drill machine, 
in rows about fourteen inches apart. If the 
seed is not first-rate, it is better to double the 
quantity than to have them too thin. They 
should stand from an inch to an inch and a 
half iu the rows. The seed may be tested by 
sprouting a small quantity in boiling water. 
If it is good, it will sprout iu fifteen or twenty 
minutes. 
Cultivation and Weeding. —It is of much 
importance to the onion crop that it be kept 
free from weeds. The plants are very small 
when young, and will not bear rough treatment, 
so the fingers are the only machine which can 
be depended upon for the first weeding and 
thinning. Much labor may be saved by allow¬ 
ing no weeds to ripen on the land, and avoid¬ 
ing the use of manure which contains their 
seeds. The onion hoe, an instrument attached 
to a wheel, is much used in Connecticut for 
cleaning the space between the rows. 
The greatest enemy of the onion is the grub 
or cut tvorm. They work in the night, but 
their tracks are easily found by the rootless and 
withering plants which mark it The only 
remedy is capital punishment. • Cleaning the 
ground in the fall, will lessen their numbers—or 
plowing at the same time. 
The usual crop is from 450 to TOO bushels. 
The Essex Co. Ag’l Transactions contains re¬ 
ports of the crops of different cultivators to the 
amount of 20 acres, and the average product fs 
over 500 bushels per acre. r. n. y. 
EARLY FRUIT. 
On a recent visit to New York w y e were not 
a little surprised to find peaches, strawberries, 
green peas and tomatoes perfectly ripe, large, 
luscious and fresh, temptingly exposed for sale 
in the principal saloons. At the same time 
there were several inches of snow on the ground 
outside. This may afford some indications of 
the luxuriousness of the New Yorkers, but it 
also gives what is far more satisfactory, some 
indication of the advancement of the age in 
rapid navigation and friendly intercommunica¬ 
tion. The peaches were genuine Morris 
Whites, and together with the tomatoes and 
green peas came from the AVest Indies,—w r e 
believe Bermuda. The strawberries came 
from the Southern States, principally from 
Georgia. The strawberries sold for about a 
cent each. 
Peach Grubs. —One of our subscribers in 
Irondequoit, informs us that the easiest and 
best means of preventing the depredations of 
the peach grub, is simply to remove all the 
earth from the stem of the tree down to the 
roots. Two or three warm days will dry the 
bark and kill all the grubs. lie has tried this 
plan on two hundred trees, and found it every¬ 
way satisfactory. 
ROOTS OF PLANTS - TRANSPLANTING. 
The roots serve to hold the plant in its 
place in the earth, and at the same time per¬ 
form the important functions of respiration, 
and of absorption of moisture and of the vari¬ 
ous matter which go to make up the substance 
of the plant. It is the only part of the plant 
which takes up the earth matter, that is, the 
peculiar part of the plant. The power of the 
roots in absorbing water may be tested by 
taking a small plant from the earth and im¬ 
mersing its roots in a vessel of water; let it be 
a tumbler; and having another similar one, 
with an equal quantity of water, standing near. 
The difference in the diminution of the body 
of water will be very great, and will- show the 
quantity absorbed by the plant. It will take 
up many times its own weight of water in a 
very short time. An experiment with four 
plants of spearmint in this way, being kept 
with their roots in water 56 days, proved that 
they took up about seven pints, the weight of 
which was about 54,000 grains, while their own 
weight was only 403 grains—being nearly 
twice and a half their own weight each day. 
The absorption .of the water by the roots 
must be in proportion to the exhalation by 
the leaves aud the digestion and assimilation 
iu the tissues of the plant, or it will suffer in 
health. This is the case in seasons of drought 
or in dry situations. The absorption is most¬ 
ly performed by the new and growing root 
fibres or spongioles, which are spongy at the 
extremity. These young fibres are therefore 
of vital importance to the plant; and by break¬ 
ing these, in removing a tree for transplanting, 
the power of absorbing nourishment is dimin¬ 
ished, often to such a degree that the tree 
languishes, aud sometimes perishes. 
American Forest Trees —In North Amer¬ 
ica we have fifty species of oak, while all Eu¬ 
rope has only 30 species. North America has 
forty species of pines and firs, the United 
States over twenty, while Europe has but four¬ 
teen species. 
wjiEttic %xi& f fc. 
ROCKET LARKSPUR. 
Tiie Rocket Larkspur—Delphinium ajacis— 
was introduced into England, from Switzerland, 
in 1573. It is not, however, thought to be a 
native of Switzerland. It has been a very 
general favorite in British gardens for more 
than two centuries and a half; and, despite the 
introduction of innumerable new candidates for 
popular favor, it is still able to hold its place 
in every good collection of annuals. The 
Rocket Larkspur belongs to that age when la¬ 
dies were not those dazzling, bewitching, de¬ 
ceptively fascinating creatures that some of our 
modern belles, superficially educated in all sci¬ 
ences, languages and accomplishments, have 
proved themselves to be, to the heartfelt sorrow 
of us susceptible bachelor mortals. She is very 
sedate in her manners, neat in her person, and, 
though adorned with the richest dress, it is so 
compactly put on that neither John Wesley, 
nor the most rigid disciple of John Fox could 
accuse her otj gaudy habiliments. The old 
lady, however, likes good living, and does not 
object to much company if it be the right kind. 
Though she has been in this country a great 
many years, yet she has not yet acquired our 
national habit of frequent change of residence. 
In other words, the Rocket Larkspur requires 
a very rich soil to bring it to perfection. The 
seed should be sown in drills where the plants 
are intended to blossom, as they will not bear 
transplanting. The compact habit of the plant 
renders it unnecessary to thin them out very 
much; they may be allowed to stand an inch 
and a half to two inches from each other in the 
rows. A large, thickly covered bed has a 
beautiful appearance. The plants are of such 
a compact and symmetrical growth, that any 
device, such as a name, can be well made by 
them, merely by drawing the proper lines and 
sowing the seeds in them. 
Crullers. —One cup of sugar, one cup of 
sweet milk, two eggs, one table-spoonful of 
butter, one of cream tartar, one tea-spoonful of 
soda, roll and cut very thin, then fry them. 
Ginger Snaps. —Two pounds of flour, one- 
half pound of butter, one-half pound of sugar, 
one-half pint of molasses, one tea-spoonful of 
saleratus, two table-spoonfuls of ginger; flavor 
with cloves or cinnamon. 
Sally Lund. —One pint of new milk, two 
eggs, one table-spoonful of butter, one of lard. 
Make a stiff batter, and add yeast enough to 
lighten. This is good for breakfast, or iu place 
of Johnny Cake. 
Cure for a Dry Cough. —Take of powdered 
gum-arabic, half an ounce; liquorice-juice, half 
an ounce. Dissolve the gum first in warm 
water, squeeze in the juice of a lemon, then add 
of paregoric two drachms; syrup of squills, one 
drachm. Cork all in a bottle and shake well. 
Take one tea-spoonful when the cough is 
troublesome. 
Grapes. —The use of grapes as an article of 
food is much recommended in case of consump¬ 
tion. They contain a large quantity of grape 
sugar, the kind which most nearly resembles 
milk sugar in its character and composition, 
which is also useful for consumptives, it having 
a great attraction for oxygen, and readily af¬ 
fording material for respiration. 
A Hint. —A very pretty and economical 
finish for sheets, pillow-cases, &c., may be made 
from the cuttings of bleached muslin, by cut¬ 
ting one and a half inch squares, and folding 
them bias, from corner to corner, then fold 
again, so as to form a point, seam on the 
straight side on raw edge, andt'ace on a strip 
to cover the seam. ^ 
Death from Eating Cloves. —A man by 
the name of Brown recently died in convul¬ 
sions, and subsequent post-mortem examina¬ 
tion showed that his death was caused by eat¬ 
ing cloves, which he had been habitually using 
for a long time instead of tobacco. 
LIST OF PATENT CLAIMS J 
Issued from the United States Patent Office, j 
For the week ending April 25, 1854. 
Josiah Ells, of Pittsburg, for improvement in j 
revolving fire-arms. 
James R. Stafford, of Brooklyn, for improve¬ 
ment in distilling and condensing apparatus. ( 
Arthur Harvie and Charles Guild, of Cincin- < 
nati, for improvement in vinous fermenting in l 
close vessels. £ 
Joseph C. Tiffany, of Coxsackie, N. Y., for ; 
improved ditching plow. i 
Geo. W. Glass, of Alleghany City, for improve- f 
ment in cast iron car wheels. 
Frederick Field, of Adrian, Mich., for im¬ 
provement in traveling bridges. 
Wm. E. Milligan, of New York, for improve- 1 
ment in railroad car seats. 1 
John P. Avery, of Stonington, for improved i 
mode of securing stones in foundations. 1 
Thos. W. Brown, of Boston, for improved file , 
or bill holders. ] 
Chas. Buss, of Marlborough, N. Y„ for irn- ( 
provement in fire-arms. 
Reuben Burdine, of Washington, D. C., for 
improved rotary pump. 
Stephen and James A. Bazin, of Canton, Mass., J 
for improvement in machinery for laying rope. i 
Henry Clark, of New Orleans, for improve- 5 
ment in machines for feeding sheets of paper to ) 
printing presses. 
George H. Cottam, of Hampstead Road, En¬ 
gland, for improvement in portable folding chair ] 
bedsteads. Patented in England, Oct. 5, 1852. 
Geo. C. Jones, of Aina, Me., and Peter King, 
of Whitefield, Me., for improved wedge machine. , 
Geo. Little, of Utica, for improved njode of ( 
operating the feed tables of printing presses. 
W. Kuhlenshmidt and W. Hauff, of N. York, ‘ 
for improvement in apparatus for feeding paper : 
to printing machines. 
Daniel R. Prindle, of East Bethany, N. Y., ' 
for improved field fence. 
Frederick Shaum, of Baltimore, for improve¬ 
ment in glass furnaces. . 
John C. F. Salomon, of Washington, D. C., for , 
improvement in brick making. 
Albert Spencer, of New York, and August 
Loeschner, of Brooklyn, for improvement in 
forming and hardening hat bodies. 
W. G. Stirling, of Bridgeport, Conn., for im¬ 
provement in forming roofs. 
Wm. Mt. Storm, of New Y ork, for improved 
bullet moulds. 
Varanes*Snell, of North Bridgewater, Mass., 
for improvement in machines for cutting and 
skiving boot counters. 
De Witt C. Smiley, of N. York, for improve¬ 
ment in oilers for machinery. 
Wm. B. Thomas and Samuel Hickok, of Buf¬ 
falo, for improvement in railroad car seats. 
Simeon Towle, of Pembroke, N. Y., for im¬ 
proved syringe eye bath. 
Isaac True, of Rochester, Ind., for improved 
reaction water wheel. 
C. D. Van Allen, of New York, for improve¬ 
ment in invalid bedstead. 
Wm. F. Ketchum, of Buffalo, assignor to Ru¬ 
fus L. Howard, of same place, for improvement 
iu guard fingers of harvesters. 
re-issue. 
F. C, Goffin, of New York, assignor to A. B. 
Ely, of Boston, for improvement in fire and bur¬ 
glar proof sales. Patented Feb. 14,1854. 
IMPORTANT DISCOVERY. 
Great guns, bouiets axphyxiants, liquid fire, 
Paixhan’s and Warner’s long rangers, and other 
humane contrivances lor shortening life and the 
duratiou of war, being in great repute just 
now, we give the following interesting commu¬ 
nication from a writer in Baris, describing the 
application of an important French invention 
to naval warfare: 
The great invention of the day, the subma¬ 
rine navigation of Dr. Bayerne, is about to be 
put in practice at Cherbourg, the company 
purchasing the invention having volunteered to 
cleanse that harbor free of expense to the gov¬ 
ernment The secret consists in the discovery 
of a means whereby artificial air may be pro¬ 
duced in sufficient quantity to enable a crew of 
fourteen men to breathe freely beneath the 
water for the space of four hours. A curious 
experiment has been already made at Mar¬ 
seilles, where Dr. Payerne, iu company with 
three sailors, went to the bottom in presence 
of hundreds of spectators, and rose at a con¬ 
siderable distance and climbed the port-holes 
of a man-of-war without being perceived by the 
crew. Many experiments are about to be tried 
of the efficacy of this novel means of attack.— 
A submarine fleet of small boats, each to con¬ 
tain a crew of twenty men, is already talked of 
as being about to be organized for the Black 
Sea. It seems that Ho intimation whatever is 
given, by the slightest ruffle on the surface, of 
the approach of one of these vessels. The ap¬ 
paratus invented by Dr. Bayerne enables the 
wearer, moreover, to move about with perfect 
ease at the bottom of the sea, and great antici¬ 
pations are formed of the immense benefit to 
be derived in submarine history from the adop¬ 
tion of this new method of becoming acquaint¬ 
ed with the hitherto unknown mystery of the 
ocean. However, it is not a bad reflection on 
the spirit of the age iu which we live, to remark, 
that the first application of this tremendous 
power, which should take rank with the elec¬ 
tric telegraph, as proof of the wondrous perse¬ 
verance and ingenuity of man, has been made 
use of for the supply of oysters from Granville 
for the halles of Baris. 
New Mode of Fencing. The Scientific 
American says that a gentleman residing in 
Windsor, Vt., has introduced into that region 
a method of fencing, which for cheapness or 
durability and efficiency can hardly be surpass¬ 
ed. He'procured stakes of a suitable wood, 
five feet in length, and steeped the lower por¬ 
tion of them in solution of blue vitriol—one 
pound to forty of water. This renders them 
almost indestructible by the natural process of 
decay. He then drives the stakes into the 
ground at a distance of 8 inches apart, bringing 
the tops into a straight line, and nailing upon 
them a narrow strip of board, using one nail 
for each stick. Among the advantages of the 
fence thus made, apart from its cheapness, it is 
said that “ cattle and sheep can’t get through 
it, horses will not jump it.” 
A WONDERFUL CLOCK. 
There is now in the possession of and manu¬ 
factured by Mr. Collings, silversmith, of Glou¬ 
cestershire, England, a most ingenious piece of 
mechanism—an eight-day clock, with dead 
beat escapement maintaining power, which 
chimes the quarters, plays sixteen tunes, plays 
three tunes in twelve hours, or will play at any 
time required. The hands go around as fol¬ 
lows:—One, once a minute; one once an hour; 
one once a week; one once a month; one, once 
a year. It shows the moon’s age, the time of 
rising and setting of the sun, the time of high 
and low water, half ebb and half flood, and by 
a beautiful contrivance, there is a part which 
represents the water, which rises and lifts the 
ships at high water tide as if it were in motion, 
and as it recedes, leaves the little automaton 
ships dry on the sands. It shows the hour of 
the day, day of the week, month of the year.— 
In the day of the moefth there is a provision 
made for the long and short months. It shows 
the twelve signs of the zodiac; it strikes or not, 
chimes as you wish it; it has the equation ta¬ 
ble, showing the difference of clock and sun 
every day in the year. Every portion of the 
clock is of beautiful workmanship, and per¬ 
forms most accurately the many different ob¬ 
jects which are called into action by the inge¬ 
nious proprietor, who is most willing to de¬ 
scribe all its achievements to any one who may 
feel a pleasure in paying him a visit. 
---» . «- 
PREVENTION OF COLLISIONS ON RAILWAYS. 
Mr. W. Gosling, of Woolrich, Eng., has 
registered an invention for the prevention of 
collisions on railways; consisting of a pendulum 
attached to the under side of the tender, and a 
series of stops placed on the sleepers, one op¬ 
posite each telegraph post. These stops act 
on hinges or joints, and during the ordinary 
transit of trains lie flush with the permanent 
way' but should any indication of danger be 
apparent to a policeman, a station master, or 
any other official, by running a few yards he 
can raise a stop, which, coming in contact with 
the pendulum of the first locomotive, closes a 
valve, which shuts off the steam, and rings a 
bell, to call the attention of the driver to the 
fact Should an engine make its escape with¬ 
out a driver, as has sometimes occurred, com¬ 
munication by telegraph would be made to 
the next station, and a like operation would 
bring it to a stand still without danger. 
Manufacture of Candles. —F. Capiccioni, 
of London, has patented a new mode of ma¬ 
king candles as follows:—When the tallow for 
making the candles is melted in the kettle, 
about one seven-thousandth of its quantity by 
weight, of the acetate of lead is added, and 
well stirred among the whole for 15 minutes. 
The heat is then lowered, but the tallow is still 
retained in a liquid state. About one-thou¬ 
sandth part of weight of turpentine, and a lit¬ 
tle of any of the perfumed resins are then 
thrown in, and all well stirred until the whole 
are thoroughly incorporated together; this 
takes about two hours, one hour for stirring, 
and one hour of rest for the uncombined im¬ 
purities to settle to the bottom. The acetate 
of lead, it is said, makes the tallow hard and 
much superior to tallow not so treated; and 
upon the whole, the composition makes very 
superior candles. 
A New Churn. —Silas Hewit, of Seneca 
Falls, is a bold man; he has dared to offer the 
world a new churn—another patent churn.— 
The.greatest curiosity about this hist of the 
churn family is how any man could invent one 
different from the thousand and one already 
lumbering the Batent Office. This he has done 
by making two upright shafts, instead of one, 
armed with spokes, which, being driven rapid¬ 
ly by a crank with two bevel wheels working 
into pinions upon the head of the shafts, give 
them a motion which throws the cream to the 
center, where it is broken up instead of passing 
around in a continuous circle. The plan looks 
like a good one. 
A New Use for Electric Telegraphs. —A 
Vienna paper in giving a description of a Rus¬ 
sian camp visited by the writer, alludes to 
certain vehicles having the appearance of an 
omnibus, each of which contained a complete 
electrical apparatus for telegraphing. Each 
carriage carried a coil of wire so thoroughly 
insulated that the heaviest artillery could pass 
over it without damage. This wire was drop¬ 
ped along the ground by the locomotion of the 
carriage, and by the use of batteries and ma¬ 
chines the Commander-in-Chief was enabled to 
receive information from different parts of the 
field and communicate orders instantly. 
Tobacco Chewers, Beware! —Besides the 
poison contained in the weed itself, many of 
our tobacco chewers are absorbing into their 
systems an oxyde of lead—the same which 
kills so many painters, and paralyzes others.— 
Lead foil is cheaper than tin foil, aud some of 
those who put up tobacco for chewing, use 
the latter instead of the former. The counter¬ 
feit may be known by its dark blue or bluish 
color, whereas tin foil is nearly white. Tobac¬ 
co chewers who do not wish to absorb two 
poisons at once, will do well to profit by this 
caution. 
A Word to Young Mechanics. —Young 
1 mechanics, who would prosper in business, 
1 have only two rules to live up to, to insure 
success. First, do your work as your custom¬ 
er wishes to have it done. The other rule is, 
' to do it by the time you promise to have it done. 
These two rules complied with, and there is not 
: much danger, if any, of a failure. 
A Frenchman has invented a kiud of paper 
made from gutta percha, which is considered 
to be superior to all other kinds for lithograplis 
and engravings. 
Cement for Bricks and Stones. —Sulphate 
of zinc and sulphate of iron, dissolved in water 
for slacking lime, makes it into a good cement. 
