wc are willing and desirous to have the same 
corrected through the channel in which such 
error appears. J. Brace. 
either. We are not particularly partial to 
Mr., Mrs. or Miss on envelopes. “Charity 
sends some recipes and makes some inquiries, 
which we give elsewhere. 
Mint wood says? " Tell A. Thorn I don’t 
know* tho origin of using the fork to put 
food in the mouth. Like many other cus¬ 
toms, it looks belter because it is a custom. 
Moreover, it necessitates slower eating, which 
is reason enough in itself.” 
Maries is catling me to sec a rattlesnake 
which R. just killed ten feet from the house, 
in the grass. Ugh ! 
Mary A. E. Wager. 
lloutrstk (Eronomn 
POULTRY 
At tlie Queens County Fair. 
So very great an improvement in the ar¬ 
rangements for this now prominent feature 
of our Agricultural Fairs, since last season, 
cannot be passed over in silence. Tlie So¬ 
ciety has put up over one hundred and fifty 
stationary coops, all covered, allowing ample 
room for the protection of visitors as well as 
the fowls; but even with tills supposed am¬ 
ple provision, a large tent holding as many 
more had to he provided, and this, too, was 
filled to the utmost. Fully three hundred 
coops were shown, of which a majority were 
first-class fowls. The fine collection of Mr. 
Gavtt attracted much attention. The most 
EARLY ROSE POTATOES 
CONDUCTED BY MARY A. E. WAGER. 
ROUEN DUCKS —CORRECTION, 
Last spring I purchased four pounds of 
Early Rose potatoes of a party who adver¬ 
tised them in the Rural, and planted them 
May 10th on rather light soil. Some of 
them appeared through the ground in too 
days, and they were lit for use very soon 
after planting. We tried them and found 
them very good to eat. On the first of Sep¬ 
tember 1 dug them and weighed the pro¬ 
duct; there was nine hundred and thirty- 
two pounds, or fifteen bushels and thirty-two 
pounds of as fine potatoes as 1 ever saw— 
the greater share of them weighing over one 
pound and ft half. We cooked them after 
they were ripe and found them most excel¬ 
lent, They cooked very quick, and were 
very dry and mealy. If they only prove as 
good next year as this, I am very sure I shall 
not be sorry I sent for them.— Peter Gil¬ 
bert, Yittoria , Onl., 1809. 
Last spriug-1 cut up six Early Rose pota¬ 
toes, that weighed just two pounds, and 
planted them in the garden. When they 
were ripe, we used two or three messes for 
a family of eight to ten persons; the ground 
moles ate quite a lot of them, and as many 
more rotted; still there were seven hundred 
a trifle over 
CONTRIBUTED RECIPES 
To Prepare War for Flowers and Fruit.— 
Take four ounces white wax, two teaspoon- 
fills balsam of fir, one and one-half tea- 
spoonfuls sweet oil; melt all together in a 
vessel placed in hot water. If you wish yel¬ 
low wax, add oue and one-half teaspoonfuls 
of chrome yellow to four ounces of wax; 
for green the same amount, of chrome green ; 
for other colors use carmine powder, Prus¬ 
sian blue, red lead, black lead, etc. Yen 
will need gamboge bristles, moss quills, 
large and small wire. If you have not a 
suitable brush you can make a little swab 
and use instead. 
Now, for your gveeu leaves, take a natural 
leaf—a rose leaf is good to start with— 
wet it in cold water, dip your brush in your 
melted wax, brush the under sklo of the 
leaf until your wax leaf is as thick as you 
wish; you can readily separate tho leaves 
with a thin knife blade. Cover tlie coarse 
wire with green wax, then place your leaves 
on, having a knob of wax on the end of the 
wire. 
Where you form the flower, it requires 
different colors; for a rose, yellow wax; the 
gamboge is to dust the center of the rose. 
It, requires pat terns to form the flower leaves. 
Lay the rose leaf in your hand, press your 
finger on to give it. the right shape, then lay 
a plait in the end you place on the wire. A 
natural flower to look at will assist very 
much. It. requires skill and judgment to 
succeed well.— Mrs. M. Knapp, Lynn , Pa. 
“ Wax Flowers: How to Make Them ” 
can bo obtained by sending $1.50 to the 
Rural office. This work gives specific and 
detailed directions— Experience. 
Tomato Pickles.— Some one asks for a good 
method for pickling green tomatoes. The 
following will repay all the trouble. Take 
good green tomatoes. Cut in slices a little 
more than one-eighth of an inch thick. Put 
them into weak brine and let them remain 
two weeks. Take thorn from the brine, wash 
in clear w'ater, put in a kettle in cold water, 
adding a few pieces of green pepper, or, 
lacking this, red pepper. Let them boil 
fifteen or twenty minutes gently. Take them 
from tho water and drain thoroughly. Have 
ready a dish of mixed spices—whole cloves, 
whole black pepper, broken cinnamon bark, 
whole mustard, a dish of sugar and another 
of raw sliced onions. As soon as drained, 
place a layer of tlie tomatoes in a jar, 
scattering over it a handful of the spices, 
another of sugar and a few slices of onion. 
Continue the layers In tlie same way till tlie 
tomatoes are all used; then pour over them 
enough good cider vinegar (cold) to cover 
well. Should the brine not keep well pour 
oil' and put on new; or should a few pieces 
on the surface become soft, localise not im¬ 
mersed in the brine, they can lie thrown 
away, and the remainder will bo found un¬ 
injured.— p. R. 
To Heed Grapes.— The following 1 think a 
good way to seed grapes:—Slip the pulp 
from the skin by pressing between the thumb 
and fingers; boil tho pulp until the seeds 
separate, then sift them; add the skins 
ever flamed and glowed on the “ walls of the 
West,” wc occasionally started prairie chick¬ 
ens from the flowers and grasses, and in 
turn fell to admiring their pretty, intelligent 
heads, and then, with the fallen Adam in us 
predominating, expressed a wish to have 
some to eat. 
“ And did you never eat any ?” asked 
Marius, in astonishment. “ We’ll bring 
the gun to-morrow and shoot some.” 
The morrow came; the rain passedawa) r , 
and everything was most propitious for 
shooting the innocent birds. Tho ponies 
were full of fire, the carriage a light, strong, 
eastern-made one, just fitted for the smooth 
undulating prairie roads, and away we 
went Driving along a hedge of poplars wo 
began to see the. coy heads bobbing up. 
We held the ponies and Marius aiming the 
gun six inches ahead of our nose, brought 
two chickens to grief—fine, plump, young 
ones, and as many as we wanted at one time. 
They were quite too precious to be entrusted 
to the unappreciative hands of the cook, nml 
so we picked and singed and “ dressed” the 
fowls to our heart's content, with a small 
congress of young and old folks looking on. 
Next day wo were to have them for dinner, 
and by some unusual event the household 
geniuses were away, and “ we,” Marius 
and Bill, (a Rocky Mountain boy, who 
thought women’s work the “ hardest and 
baddest of anybody’s,”) and Mary (Just the 
kind of an unselfish, sacrificing little girl we 
had read about in Sunday School books, but 
so rarely encountered in real life) and black- 
eyed little Lucy and ourselves, must get the 
dinner. Wo had an inward chuckle in con¬ 
templating cooking the chickens, and so set 
at work with all the above-mentioned aids 
clamoring for something to help about. 
The grand finale was reached, the chicken 
broth brought to Just the desired quantity, 
the potatoes cooked just right, when Marius, 
anxious to do more, we said “ Yes, you may 
turn the water off tlie potatoes, and, mind, 
turn it well off, keeping tho cover on close¬ 
ly,”— all the while turning the canned 
peaches into a dish. Presently a groan of 
despair rose on the air; Bill was chuckling 
uproariously, while Mary and Lucy looked 
no way, and Marius sat down in a chair. 
A glance at the covered kettles told the 
story, Marius had turned tho “ water” off 
the chickens, anil closely too! “ Too many 
cooks spoil the broth!” shouted Bill. 
“ 1 wish I bad never been born!’’ groaned 
Marius. “ Yon took So much pains, and 
now for me to have spoiled all. A mutt is a 
excellence, 
and twenty-five pounds, or 
twelve bushels of good ones left. — O. 0. 
Ames, Clyde , Ohio. 
T. M. Williams, Chenango Co., N. Y., 
writes that he planted one pound of Early 
Rose about May 15, oue eye to a bill, and 
dug, Aug. 31, three hundred and two pounds 
as the result. 
POTATO EXPERIMENT 
As I had read and listened to many argu¬ 
ments, pro and con, on the subject of Large 
vs. Small, and Cut vs. Uncut seed, l de¬ 
cided to satisfy myself, at least on the vexed 
question. Accordingly, on the 13th day ot 
May last I planted a small quantity of pota¬ 
toes, known here as the “ Pink Eye,” on a 
piece of uniformly poor land, and in tlie 
manner described as follows, viz.: 
One large whole potato in each hill, twenty 
hills, No. 1; one small do. do., No. 2; one stem- 
end do. do., No. 3; one seed and top-end do. do., 
No. 4; one single eye do. do., No. 6; two single 
eye do. do., No. 0; ono large wholo potato do. 
do., No. 7. 
The first six twenties received about a 
half handful of plaster in each hill, while the 
lust described twenty received no plaster and 
no manure of any kind. Each atul every 
hill and kind received the same care and 
cultivation, and were dug and weighed Sept 
24th, being fully ripe. My soil is a very 
light sandy loam, and the season has been a 
remarkably wet one. The following table 
will show the result, being placed in tlie 
same order as above described: 
, -.- Aln.rkot.abla. Up'ketublo. Total. 
Eounrlo. Hounds. Pounds. 
No. 1..41 18# mi 
No. 2. 49# 13 01# 
No. 3.!. 58 11 68 
No, 4, . 67 11# 78# 
No. 6 . 52 7 59 
No. 6. 55 12 67 
No. 7. 94 16 110 
The most noticeable feature in this result 
is the difference between plaster and no 
plaster. I was much surprised to find that 
tlie small seed yielded the largest return, or 
at least greater than the largo seed; how 
ever, my own pet potato principle is proved 
in No. 4, viz.:—That the top end of a potato 
is the part for seed. 
Will some one else who has been experi¬ 
menting *' among the vines” give their ex¬ 
perience? Wm. A. Connell. 
Salina, N. Y. 
ROUEN DRAKE. 
very fine; also Messrs. Barnum’s and Nor¬ 
ton’s. In fact, tlie competition was so close 
in very many pens that it was only by aver¬ 
aging points that tho judges could render a 
fair decision. One drawback there was, and 
that was the arrangement. We have belbre 
spoken of the propriety, nay necessity, of a 
strict classification. It is essential to a cor¬ 
rect judgment that the fowls of each kind 
should be placed side by side—and unless 
this is done, tlie duties of tho judges are 
made much more arduous and prolonged. 
At the above show everything was jum¬ 
bled up; hardly any two coops of a kind 
were to be found together. A. chance ob¬ 
server is not struck with the excellence of 
any particular class, and he has no means 
of comparison. Hardly any one, save an 
expert, can carry the points of a fowl in his 
mind any length of time, and even he is 
liable to error. 
The show seemed, and was, a heterogene¬ 
ous collection of chickens, good to be sure, 
but like gold in quartz or sand, it needed to 
be “ washed out.” Where fowls are shown 
in classes, each kind distinct from tlie other, 
the characteristics of each breed crop out. 
(so to speak,) with a distinctness that is at 
once noticeable anil pleasing. In the other 
case their individuality is lost; they only 
form a part of one collective whole. it. 
or even equal them.” Mr. Bement, in the 
American Poulterer’s Companion, says about 
the same thing of this breed of ducks. 
In our remarks upon the Rouen ducks we 
110 not wish to be understood as saying any¬ 
thing detracting from the merits of the 
Aylesbury, for wo consider them, next to tlie 
Rouen, a breed not to be despised, and one 
which should find place in every farm-yard. 
1 11 England the Aylesbury is conceded to 
be a universal favorite. 
We give as our authority for saying that 
the Rouen duck derives its name from the 
•city of Rouen, on the river Seine, in France, 
such eminent French breeders and authors 
as M. Rbaumkr and M. Bouneman. Mow¬ 
bray, in his “ Practical Treatise on Fowls,” 
says the same thing, as also does Mr. 
Hewitt, the great English breeder, and 
Bement in the “ American Poulterer’s Com¬ 
panion ” the acknowledged standard work 
on Poultry in this country. Mr. Barringer, 
of whom wo derived our information rela¬ 
tive to the Rouen duck, imported his breed 
at the same time Mr John Giles of Wood- 
stock, Conn., did his Aylesbury ducks—in 
1854, we believe. 
As to there being a variety of colors in 
the breed of Rouen ducks, Beeton, in his 
“Book of Poultry," which is a standard 
work in England on “Poultry and Domestic 
Animals—how to rear and manage them in 
sickness and health.” says:—“ The Rouen 
duck is of French extraction, and in plumage 
is somewhat of a somber, or, as wo would 
say in England, slate color.” Now, II. 
says they are of a wine color, while the de¬ 
scription we gave of them in our article is 
the same as giveu of them by both French, 
English and American breeders. 
We have said thus much relative to the 
Rouens simply to set ourselves right on the 
weight given in a former article, and not for 
the sake of getting up a discussion in favor 
of this or that breed of fowls, for we do not 
breed fowls for speculative purposes, nor 
have any for sale, nor have we any friends 
who have. Such lightas we have in poultry 
breeding we are willing and desirous of im¬ 
parting for the benefit of the general reader; 
and if, in so doing, we should make a wrong 
or erroneous statement,—which is human,— 
jerbsimw. 
MEMORANDA FOR HERDSMEN. 
AUike Clover.—J. H. I)., Chenango Co., N. Y., 
asks If Alsllcc clover Is good for after-feed. His 
field, mowed July 18th, 1869, has not come up a 
second time, although it has been wet, and his 
other meadows furnish a good after-crop, lie 
further says of the Alsike:—Tf makes a first 
quality of hay, and is ahead of other kinds or 
Clover or buckwheat for bees. It will not be a 
valuable crop in dairy districts if It produces tiu 
aftermath. 
Removing After-Birth.—During the last eight 
or ton months 1 have read inquiries in the Ru- 
ka i< New-Yorker for a remedy where eowa do 
not drop their after-birth after coming in, and 
yet I have been silent. The cause, I apprehend, 
i 3 the lack of Iron in tho blood. Now, l'or tho 
remedyTake old scrap iron, (wrought iron, of 
course; fifteen or twenty pounds or more will 
do no harm.) put In a vessel that will hold throe 
gallons of water; boil it briskly for one hour; 
when coot, or luke-warm, give four quarts of 
the liquor in a bran mash. ir tho first mess docs 
not remove the difficulty, repeat. It. It has never 
failed with us for thirty-live years. Before I 
found this remedy, I. lost a fine cow by having 
her operated on by an ignorant scamp who called 
himself a “Cow Doctor.” —An Old Farmer, 
Schuyler Co., N. Y. 
Broom Corn Culture.—E mory GooniCH, Brush 
Creek, Iowa, asks how much broom corn seed 
he requires for thirty acres of land, what kind, 
distance apart it should be planted, best kind of 
planter to use, where it may be obtained, and 
cost? Ills land is black sandy loam. How much 
land, with good Culture, wilt produceaton? Ho 
asks the experience and practice of correspond¬ 
ents of the RURAL iu reply to those inquiries. 
Feeding Potatoes to Cow*.—J. II. B., Chenango 
Co., N. ¥., writes that ho feed* cows potatoes 
with good results. Feeds i u the spring after the 
cows come in. Prepares them by mashing them 
on a plunk with a wooden mullet. After feeding 
a few awhile he says a cow may eat « peck at a 
time without harm, and they will increase the 
flow of milk as well as benefit the cows' health. 
The Corn Crop.—Based upon reports of the 
Condition of this crop throughout tlie country 
in July and August, the Commissioner of Agri¬ 
culture estimates that “unless tlie close cl' the 
season is very favorable, there must be one 
hundred and fifty millions of bushels less than a 
full crop.” 
Lice on Cattle.—A funner writes the RURAL 
that •* to expol blue lice from cattle, talcu hog's 
lard and coal oil warmed together and rub the 
animal all over therewith. Two or three appli¬ 
cations will kill the last of them.” 
Another remedy »* said to be wood ashes 
rubbed thoroughly on the buck of the animal. 
The Colton Crop.—In hts report on the condi¬ 
tion of crops for J uly and August, Commissioner 
Capron says“ the probabilities at present ravor 
a yield of two million seven hundred and fifty 
thousand bales," 
Orchard Ornss.—J. P. C., Lee, N. C.—Orchard 
grass seed can probably be obtained of any 
seedsman advertising in the Rural. B. K. Bliss 
& Son, 41 Park Row, New York, sell it at four 
dollars per bushel. 
A Wen on a Two-Yeur-Old. — R. P. G. Payns- 
ville, Minn.—Your two-year-old has a wen on its 
jaw we Judge. We know of no cure tor It. It 
was doubtless caused by a hurt. 
Ice Cream. — Will some of your contributors 
give a recipe for making ice cream of different 
colors and flavors?—C. Bcnsall. 
