The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Back Door 
The hack door in many farmhouses 
leads out from the kitchen. It is ordi¬ 
narily used more than any other door 
in the house. The men folks go in and 
out; fuel, water, milk and vegetables 
are carried in. The farmer’s wife 
spends the quarter part of her life in 
the kitchen. The view from the win¬ 
dows often presents a striking contrast 
to the well-kept front yard, with trees, 
shrubbery and flowers. The housewife 
rakes a short hurried look at the flow¬ 
ers and returns to kitchen duties. Who 
ever saw a farmer's wife in a hammock 
or sitting on the front porch in day¬ 
light? One can ride for miles across 
country and not see a sign of life in 
the front part of the house or yard. 
A woman from Ireland said our farm¬ 
houses wore so lonesome. 
A very pleasant and convenient ad¬ 
dition to a farmhouse consists of a 
long, wide, covered porch, the kitchen 
door leading to it. If it takes in the 
well, so much the better. It can be 
sided up to the height of a work table, 
and a narrow shelf made on the top 
the whole length of the porch, which 
makes a handy place to keep articles 
in # Summer time that clutter the 
kitchen, also a place for porch boxes. 
If there is partial shade plants like 
Begonias, ferns. German ivy and others 
that thrive under those conditions can 
lie grown and cared for with little time, 
as water from the kitchen would be 
handy. Tf shade is required nastur¬ 
tiums. morning-glories and wild encum¬ 
ber vine will furnish plenty, while a 
permanent vine, like the five-fingered 
ivy (Virginia creeper) is getting a 
start. The latter is an accommodating 
vine, as it will grow in any direction, 
and soon take possession of the porch; 
it can be trimmed and kept in bounds. 
If room, hammocks can he hung 
where the men folks can rest and read 
the papers during the noon hour. Much 
of the kitchen work can he done on the 
porch away from the kitchen fire. The 
housewife can darn stockings or mend 
shirts or rest quietly, seeing the flow¬ 
ers. the fields of growing grain, the 
men at work, and the distant hills, out 
of sight of the numerous duties in the 
other part of the house and forget 
them for a time while resting. 
w. w. s. 
Two Hardy Shrubs 
In watching the neighbors’ flowers 
by far the handsomest new bush is the 
Rosa rugosa, the Rauianas rose, from 
Northern China. Japan and Koi-ea. 
Catalogues say it grows 3 to 4 feet 
high, but the specimen I have in 
mind is all of 7 feet high, and 
probably more across the top. The 
foliage is ornamental, without blooms, 
being dark green, thick and seemingly 
free from insects. This particularly 
tine specimen is the rosy-carmine sin¬ 
gle. There are also single white and 
double varieties. The blossoms are in 
clusters and borne for a long time, and 
the individual blooms are about 3 in. 
across. The hops are large and showy. 
As all good roses should hive, it had 
full sunshine, good drainage and fer¬ 
tile soil. This lady is quite apt to give 
her roses a good blanket of stable 
dressing each Fall, and spade it in in 
the Spring, and her arch of Crimson 
Ramblers well repays, as it will be a 
perfect wreath, handsomer by far than 
any catalogue picture. 
A shrub that calls forth much atten¬ 
tion is classed as a vine, but is in 
reality more of a trailing shrub, is the 
Chinese matrimony vine. T.ycium har- 
barum. Mine was started from a flow¬ 
ering branch in a bouquet. I kept it 
in water, and noticed calluses on the 
stem such as form on Rambler roses, 
so I treated it as I do Rambler rose 
cuttings; potted it in common garden 
soil and covered with a tumbler and 
set it in a south window till early Win¬ 
ter. when it was put in the cellar, and 
then planted at the southwest corner 
of the house, a hot. dry. but fertile 
situation. It is now live or six years 
old. about 7 ft. high and 8 ft. across 
and a very fountain of greenery. Last 
year it made great growth; one growth 
measured 4 ft. 3 in. long June 25, and 
dozens of branches are over 3 ft. long. 
At the axil of almost every leaf is a 
tiny hud which will open into a rosy- 
purple flower about a half inch across, 
to be followed by a brilliant scarlet 
berry, which is retained till Fall, as 
well as the leaves. mother bee. 
Satisfaction with Old-time Cyclamen 
1 am interested in everything in TnE 
R. X.-Y. ; we give it a thorough reading. 
I have read from time to time articles 
about growing Cyclamens. As they are 
so different from mine I will give mine. 
339 
I have a Cyclamen that is over 20 years 
old that has given me hundreds of beau¬ 
tiful blossoms. A cousin gave it to me 
10 years ago this Spring; it was in 
bloom them. She had had it for some 
years, she did not know how many. Every 
Spring I took it out of the pot and set it 
in my flower bed to rest, taking no notice 
of it till the latter part of August or first, 
of September, when I potted it. It was 
often in bloom at Thanksgiving time, 
blooming all Winter, or till I put it to 
rest again. Mine is not the giant Cycla¬ 
men. but the smaller kind. It seems to 
me as if there would be small satisfaction 
in growing a Cyclamen bulb to bloom 
only once. MRS. J. B. 
Primrose and Its Culture 
(Continued from page 335) 
new root growth starts and new leaves 
show. When the plants are growing 
thriftily repot in fresh compost, like be¬ 
fore mentioned. 
Water the plants enough to soak the 
soil through to the bottom of the pots, 
then do not water again until the soil ap¬ 
pears dry on top. Then soak again as 
before, and so on. Over-watering causes 
the leaves to turn yellow. Always water 
under the leaves, as the foliage is in¬ 
jured by water. The baby primrose re¬ 
quires more water than the other vari¬ 
eties. 
When the buds appear, water once a 
month with weak manure water. If the 
manure water is not available, dissolve 
one tablespoon of nitrate of soda in two 
gallons of soft water and apply once a 
month, or use some prepared plant food 
as directed on package. Do not apply 
the food when the plants are very dry. 
Sometimes aphis of different kinds 
come on the plants. The best remedy for 
any one kind is to spray thoroughly With 
a solution of Black-leaf 40: to one gallon 
of water add one tablespoon soap powder; 
when dissolved, ado one teaspoon Black- 
leaf 40. which can be had in ounce pack¬ 
ages from any druggist or other merchant 
carrying a line of spraying materials. If 
no spray is at hand, fit a cardboard in pot 
to keep the ground in and dip the plants 
in the solution. Sometimes a dusting of 
tobacco dust is sufficient to banish the 
pests. Mary a. kinttgh. 
12 months to 
For a small payment down you 
can equip your farm with elec¬ 
tricity right away. 
And when you install the 
Western Electric Outfit, you get 
more than plenty of lights. This 
Outfit with the extra size engine 
and the long lived battery furnishes 
power too — power enough to run 
your water system, your utility 
motor, your separator and the many 
labor-saving devices that electricity 
makes possible. 
Running the milking 
machine vacuum 
pump—one of the 
many things you can 
operate from the 
pulley. 
To Dealers: Some good territory still 
open for live-usirc representatives. 
S Mail this 
f coupon for 
S Booklet R N 1, 
* to Western Elec- 
yf trie Co., Power and 
Light Department, 401 
Hudson Street, New York. 
Makes the battery last longer 
