V 
EXCELSIOR 
5 Ueokiuan St., New Yorli* 
82 itultalo St., liuctieater. 
NEW YORK CITY AND ROCHESTER, N, Y, 
£2.50 PKR YEAR. 
Single iVo., Right (Jenu, 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1871, by D. D. T. Moore. In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Waahlnpton.l 
Freezinc Seed. 
Dec. 13.—There arc, 
=. doubtless, many per¬ 
sons who liavc tree 
seed on hand which is 
“ drying and becoming 
s ' ' \ exposed to the cold of 
hickory and black- 
ATI0N walnut, it is well to 
' mix with moist sand 
and place in a cellar for it week or 
two, and then set the vessels containing 
such seeds a ml nuts out into the open air, 
covering up tightly to prevent mice and 
rats, or other animals from getting at them. 
ash, locust, tree, ami many 
other kinds of seeds may he treated in this 
manner, and unless some such preparation 
is made, they will fail to grow when planted 
next spring, the seedsman being generally 
blamed for the loss. 
Forelup I'lunti in l’ot«, 
Dec. 14.—The idea seems to be prevalent 
among inexperienced gardeners that plants 
may be forced into growth as readily as hogs 
can be fattened. This may he true in regard 
to some species, hut not all, and with some 
it is positively necessary that there should 
be considerable time allowed for preparation 
1 before great beat 13 applied to the plants, 
or they are forced into making a rapid 
growth. To have roses, carnations and 
worthy of being cultivated as house plants 
where the climate is too severe to permit of 
garden culture. 1 have pot ted several of the 
more tender species and varieties, such as 
Pmfcm, aurea , and plumosa, and think they 
make about, as handsome ornamental plants 
for the conservatory ns heaths or other tine 
leaved evergreens. They are readily pro¬ 
pagated from cuttings, and those made from 
(lie young growing shoots of potted plants 
strike root in a very few days, if placed 
where there is a strong bottom heat. 
Nothing Ui Do. 
Dec. 16.—Yos; this seems to he the cry of 
about one-half of our population, and men 
and women stalk about, the streets of our 
cities, or wander into the country in search 
of something to do Of course the winter is 
comparatively a slack time in many fields of 
labor, and lor one I pity those who suffer for 
needful articles to support life, hut they cer¬ 
tainty have no one io blame hut themselves. 
In this country there is far more work to do 
than laborers to do it, and scores of men and 
women are actually working themselves to 
death because there is no one to lift a por¬ 
tion of the burden from their shoulders. If 
the truth must be told, those who know how 
and are willing to work are never idle. 
Every tame I go into the great city of New 
York l meet thousands of men and women 
who have more work on their hands than 
they ckii possiliiy'uo, while other thousands 
may be seen wandering lift and down the 
atrnotq will, nothin? to do. “ Amb-wiuit, (tpa 1 - 1 
bent for the trellises, 
but other accessible 
woods may be used. 
The bark should be 
left on. The embel¬ 
lishment with vines 
may be cheaply and 
quickly secured by 
any person of taste 
who knows how to se- 
lect, plant and train 
them; and they should ,£&£.:*• 
be selected, planted 
and trained by every 
person who lives in 
such a cottage. Such 
garniture is the best nTf 
external evidence of 
refinement and good IjLij j 
taste that can be em- 
ployed; and as an edu¬ 
cational agency in a V /-^ 
family, nothing is more 
potent nor gives great¬ 
er pleasure. The cot. 
t,uge would probably 
cost more than $1,000 or $1,200 now 
xtral Ardbitectxtrt 
COUNTRY CLERGYMAN’S COTTAGE, 
Wtc desire to erect a neat, tasteful, cheap, 
but comfortable cottage for our clergyman. 
We are a small congregation, and cannot 
build an extravagant structure. It occurred 
to me that, you, or some of your accomplished 
correspondents, might give us some hints 
tlmi would be useful to us. With this hope 
I write you. Our plans are unformed, and 
you may help to form them. 
Admiringly, A Church Trustee. 
A clergyman who had a half-acre of laud 
fronting south upon a road running east and 
west, once wrote to the late A. J. Downing 
for advice as to the style of cottage he should 
build, stipulating that it should not cost 
much over $1,000 or $1,200, and yet should 
contain upon the first floor parlor, study, 
bed-rooms, sitting-room, kitchen and pan- 
tries. In arranging the plan himself, lie 
found his difficulties to be to bring the kitch¬ 
en near the sitting-room without giving up 
the bed-room; to get a hack stairway under¬ 
neath which might be a way to the cellar; 
to obtain a room over the kitchen, and final¬ 
ly to know what the external appearance ol 
such a house should be that U may be neat 
and proper without allowing pretension. 
To these difficulties Mr. Downing re¬ 
sponded with the accompanying elevation 
and plan—retaining all the principal features 
lie asks for, only modifying them so as to 
bring them into constructive form and agree¬ 
able arrangement. Not being able to arrange 
for a back stair lie has given something of 
the same utility, so far as the cellar way is 
concerned,by shutting off the hack entrance 
from the front hall by a door at C, in Fig. 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
From the Diary of a Gentleman near New 
York City. 
Lailr-birtls In Greenhouses. 
Dec. 11,—Everybody is supposed to know 
that the little beetles called Lady birds 
( Coccinellula ) are very useful insects. The 
larvte as well as perfect beetle feed entirely 
upon plant lice, destroying these pests of out- 
gardens in countless numbers, thereby doing 
an immense amount of good and no harm 
to anything except lice. In autumn the 
Lady-birds crawl away under the bark 
of old logs and trees, or under the sods 
and weeds in the fence corners, where 
they remain in a semi - lifeless stale 
until spring. Hundreds of these little 
beetles are often found in winter un¬ 
der a small sod or bunch of weeds, ap¬ 
parently having been drawn together for the 
sake of company. A few days ago I ob¬ 
tained a large number of one of our most 
common species, and had them all carried 
into my green-house. They soon awoke from 
their torpid state, and scattered themselves 
over the plants, where their natural food, 
[Aphuleu) was altogether too plentiful. 
Whether l shall he able to introduce a suffi¬ 
cient number of Lady-birds, or keep them at 
work rapidly enough to destroy all the plant 
lice in the house remains to be seen, but it is 
an experiment worth trying. Besides, there 
is some pleasure to he derived in studying 
the habits of these beautiful little beetles, 
and in addition to this, they are decidedly 
ornamental when flying about, or resting 
upon leaf or flower. 
New Hooks. 
Dec. 12.—As the mercury creeps 
down towards zero I feel like creep¬ 
ing into an easy chair, in a cozy room, 
and consoling myself with the latest y 
books on rural life. Every year I lay 
in a goodly store of such works for 
the long winter evenings and stormy 
days, but 1 must say that the greater 
part of them are about as valuable as 
a last year’s birds nest. If the United 
Htates was a monarchy, and I was 
monarch, some of these soaring thiev¬ 
ing authors would get their wings 
clipped. Here I have collected al- 
most a score of volumes the past 
year, all relating to rural subjects, 
some of which are immense octavos of 
five to six hundred pages, and profess 
14X12 ¥ 14X12 
STORE R 
PANTRY 
13X16 
PARLOR 
J3XJ6 
Figure 2. 
lazy and indolent, or was so unfortunate as 
to have parents who did not foresee the ne¬ 
cessity of leaching their children the dignity 
oflabor, and how to obtain an honest living. 
Figure 3. 
1. A door at D, opens on the veranda. In 
the study there arc book-cases, with closets 
for papers, B. B. The parlor is 13x16 feet 
on one side of the hall and a corresponding 
dining-room on the other side—the latter 
having two convenient closets so placed at 
the end of the room as to form a kind of 
bay window effect. There is also a kitchen, 
a bed-room for the clergymen and his wife 
ami a child’s bed-room all in connection. 
The door A, should be glazed In order to 
light the back entry more completely. If a 
communication between the bed-room and 
the entry is thought more desirable than the 
closets, a door may be placed there instead 
of the closets. 
The second floor plan, Fig. 2 shows five 
bed-rooms with a closet a, a, a, a, a, to each. 
The dotted lines show the roofof the veran¬ 
da. Fig. 3 is a small sketch, showing the 
rear of the cottage. The first story being 
11 feet in the clear, the posts for the frame 
of this cottage would he 17 feet long. The 
outside is desigued to be covered with verti¬ 
cal siding and battens. 
We think the exterior of this cottage ad¬ 
mirable. The rustic veranda and rustic 
trellises over the windows are intended for 
vines—not merely as supports for them but 
to give thereby an air of rural refinement 
and poetry to the house at comparatively 
small expense; for it is not designed by Mr. 
Downing that the trellises shall be built by 
carpenters and included in the original cost 
of the cottage, but to be added afterwards 
by the clergymen or any one else expert 
with saw and hammer. Cedar poles are 
HALL 
OF’.'WIDE 
STUDY 
1J X13 
VERANDA C 
be 
PORCH 
iiARBOUR *.-« 
Figure 1. 
they are capable of digesting. Men or wo¬ 
men who devote their entire lives to the 
study of a particular subject may have some 
excuse for writing a hook, but, nine-tenths of 
all the works published on rural subjects are 
mere compilations or stealings from t he rural 
press. In fact a man would have to be half 
comet or telegraph to successfully compete 
with the rural press, particularly with the 
Rubai, New-Yorker. 
NOTES FOR HERDSMEN, 
How to Ca*t an Animn 
P. S. Simpson asks the Rural New- 
Yorker to give the best mode of easting an 
animal. We have often seen it done in the 
manner herewith Illustrated. Pass a rope 
first around the neck, a noose being formed 
in the center of a strong rope, the ends of 
which are carried between the fore legs, each 
respectively drawn through the ring upon 
the hobble put upon each hind fetlock, and 
afterwards through the rope collar upon 
each side. The head being secured, force is 
applied to one rope in a line with the body, 
the pullers being behind, and the other at 
tight angles, or from the side. When the 
animal falls, the ropes must be secured by 
drawing them into knots at the collar, or 
around the fetlocks of the hind feet. 
A Cow with it Wooden Leg. 
Enclosed please find a small scrap clip¬ 
ped from the “Lancaster Observer,” Eng¬ 
land. Thinking it might, be of interest to 
some of the readers of your valuable paper 
1 forward it, to you. 1 have taken a great 
interest in your paper for the last two years, 
though my name may not appear on your 
official list at Head-quarters; I take it regu¬ 
lar of my news-carrier. I have recruited a 
AN OX PREPARED FOR CASTING. 
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