MOOBE’S BUBAL WEW-YORKEB, 
i 
I 
i 
<§rarg of a Jjtoralist 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
From the Diary of a Centleman near New 
York City. 
AH APOLOGY, 
Jan. 21,—A few week since I mentioned 
the fact that a clergyman had sent to me for 
a “peanut-tree," appending remarks upon 
the gentleman’s ignorance of the products of 
tins mundane sphere, particularly that por¬ 
tion of it included in the State of New Jersey, 
Although J stated that peanuts did not grow 
on trees, I neglected to tell how They did 
grow, and u letter just received from L. S., 
Erie Co., Pa., reminds me of the oversight on 
my part, and 1 hasten to offer an apology for 
presumiug that ’any body knows anything. 
One of the first lessons my old instructor in 
original composition tried to make me learn 
was that the person or pci-sons to whom I 
addressed myself were ent irely ignorant of 
the subject in hand. “Never presume upon 
the intelligence of your readers, hut carefully 
explain everything as though you were telling 
something entirely new and original." I 
have al ways endeavored to follow his advice, 
but occasionally I become careless, as in this 
instance about the peanut-tree, and then 
somebody arises and desires me to explain. 
But the road is not always smooth to him 
that tries t o be very explicit, fur there are 
those who will meet the careful writer with 
a “What fool don’t know that ? ’’ and sot him 
down as au egotist for endeavoring to give 
instruction to those who do not happen to 
know everything about the subject under 
consideration. It is not long since that I ex¬ 
plained my method of transplanting trees 
from the forests, and hinted that residents on 
the prairies might do well by adopting a sim¬ 
ilar system, but the Industrial Agent of the 
Kansas Pacific Railroad gave me a terrible 
scolding for my presumption in even hinting 
that everybody iu the Western States did not 
already know all that was to be known in 
relation to the subject. Of course we are all 
inclined to be a little egotistical, and I con¬ 
fess to be slightly inclined that way myself, 
for I have never met a man or wnuian to 
whom 1 could not tell something which they 
did not know, even if it was nothing more 
than the age of Mrs. Ritualist or my eldest 
daughter. At the same time the most igno¬ 
rant person among niy acquaintances proba¬ 
bly possesses many little .scraps of knowledge, 
obtained through experience or study, of 
which I am entirely destitute. 
This much in the way of an apology to L. 
S. aud others who have never seen a planta¬ 
tion of peanuts, or read a description of the 
manner of growth. 
THE PEANUT OR F.NDUR—ARACKIS HVPOQEA. 
This plant is also known as the ground nut, 
and is a native of South America. It is alow 
tx-ailing annual, belonging to the pulse or pea 
family ( Lcgnminaaot), the flowers smuli, yel¬ 
low, pea-shaped, and issue from the stems 
near the ground, and after being fertilized, 
the flower stem grows six to eight inches 
long, and grows downward, penetrating the 
soil where the seed-pod is formed. It Is this 
peculiar habit of the peanut which gave rise 
to the common name of ground-nut. It may 
readily be understood from the above why a 
loose, light and friable soil is necessary in 
peanut culture; for if the surface becomes 
hard and baked in dry weather, the flower 
stems could not enter it, and the pods would 
be very small and greatly deformed. In light 
sand}- soil, a moderate crop can usually be 
produced, even in the Northern States, by 
starting the plants in a liot-bed, and then 
carefully transplanting when the weather be¬ 
comes warm. The best way is to plant one 
seed in a four inch pot, and plunge these in the 
hot-bed; then the plant can be turned out 
into the open ground without disturbing the 
roots. 
OLD-FASHIONED ROSES. 
Jan. 22.—Mrs. G. H. A., New Haven Conn., 
desires me to tell her something more about 
the old-fashioned roses which I mentioned in 
my Diary last Summer. As the question is 
not explicit, l am at a loss to know how to 
answer it. Perhaps the question was merely 
the result of her musings, a3 thought traveled 
back to the old garden of her youth, where 
the fragrant Lilac and Syringe struggled for 
supremacy among the tangled mass of Sweet 
Briars, Cinnamon and Damask Roses. Such 
thoughts will occasionally take possession of 
us, and then we go back to the time when 
young eyes, and light hearts to aid them, saw 
beauty in everything. A note on my table, 
from a lady born at the North, but now a 
resident of Southern Texas, says, “will you 
try and send me a small plant of the old 
Sweet Briar with fragrant leaves?" 
It cannot be that she desires that plant for 
the beauty of its pale-colored single flowers ; 
but there must be something beyond and be¬ 
hind all this that.makes her cherish this old 
favorite of our roadside and country gardens. 
It is partly due to some such feeling that T 
cherish those old roses ; and while I can ad¬ 
mire a Madam Victor Verdier, John Hopper, 
and General Jacquimenot, still I love the old 
Cabbage, or Provence, rose better. Then 
there are many interesting little scraps of 
history belonging to these old favorite sorts 
which one cannot help remembering as we 
prune, cultivate or gather the flowers. The 
Madam Plant icr is certainly a beautiful white 
rose, and so is the old Unique Provence, with 
the additional charm of that little story of 
how a Mr. Grim wood, in 1777, found it in the 
garden of Mr. Richmond in Suffolk, Eng. ; 
and how Mr. O, asked for a cutting and re¬ 
ceived the entire plant, with a “ You are 
welcome, sir,” into the bargain. Mr. Qrim- 
WOOJP was so well pleased with his present, 
and so successful in its propagation, that the 
next year ho presented t he giver with a beau¬ 
tiful Rilver cup, upon which was engraved a 
figure of the rose, and tins, Mr. Richmond, 
as a matter of course, preserved to the end 
of his days, and left it as an heir-cup (not 
loom) to his children. 
Then, who can forget Olir Double Pink Moss 
rose, the oldest and om- of the best of the 
mosses, although it was not known to En¬ 
glish ruse cultivators until 1590. It. is not yet 
out of fashion, although it is an old fash¬ 
ioned sort. What changes in empires and 
people ! what, wooing* and bickerings, miser¬ 
ies and happiness, this old rose has passed 
safely through, and st ill the bloom of youth 
remains upon its petals just as bright as it 
was three hundred years ago ! 
Among the dark, rich, velvety roses, we nil 
admire Lion des Combats, Le Noir, and Car 
dinal Pntrizzi ; but old George the. Fourth is 
still a giant among the pigmies, even if ft 
does not bloom but once a year. And who 
can read the history of this variet y without 
feeling that it has had a wonderful influence 
upon the rise and progress of horticult ure. I 
give the story as told by the originator iu 
1837—Mr. Thomas Rivers. the veteran, as 
well as one of the greatest horticult urists in 
the world:—“One morning in June T was 
looking over the first bed of roses I had ever 
raised from seed, and searching for some¬ 
thing new among them with all the ardor of 
youth, when my attention was attracted to 
a rose in the center of the bed. not in bloom, 
but growing with great vigor, its shoots offer¬ 
ing a remarkable contrast to those by which 
it was surrounded, in their crimson purple 
tinge; upon this plant I set my mark, and 
the following Autumn removed to a pet sit¬ 
uation. It did not bloom in perfection the 
season after removal, but when established, 
it completely eclipsed all the dark roses 
kuown.” 
Now, who will pretend to tell what an in¬ 
fluence that little plant lias had upon Mr. 
Rivers’ life and character ? His first experi¬ 
ment in raising new roses being crowned 
with'great results, he was encouraged to pro¬ 
ceed further, and soon became one of the 
greatest rose cultivators in Europe. Success 
in one branch of horticulture led him into 
others, in all of which he has been eminently 
successful ; for he still lives, although a very 
old man. to enjoy his honestly-earned honors. 
Who shall say that t he success of Mr. Rivers 
in producing the George the Fourth did not 
give a new impetus to rose growing in 
Europe ? and scores of the celebrated names 
which have since been known in this branch 
of floriculture owe their honors, in part at 
least, to that little rose seed planted more 
than fifty .years ago. Whenever this olrl rose 
lias bloomed in my garden, during the past 
twenty or more years, its history has been 
brought to mind, and 1 enjoy its fragrance 
more intensely in consequence. These are 
but few of the many interesting tales that 
have come down to us intermingled with the 
fragrance and beauty of old-fashioned roses. 
WORMS IN FLOWER POTS. 
Jan. 14.—I have often heard ladies, and 
even professional gardenere, complaining of 
the abundance of various species of worms 
inhabiting flower pots, thereby injuring the 
growth of plants growing therein. If a little 
fresh lime is dissolved in the water applied to 
the soil, nearly every species of worm that is 
found in such position will be killed and the 
plants not injured. Tobacco will also destroy 
most kinds of worms ; but lime is preferable, 
because it aids in dissolving the plant food in 
the soil, thereby stimulating growth. Water¬ 
ing the plants with lime wat er once a week 
will be sufficient to kill the worms in the soil, 
as well as stimulate growth. 
pricntijic ami Useful. 
THE ECONOMY OF FUEL. 
Engineers tell us that in performing the 
same amount of work an inferior fireman 
will consume twice the quantity of fuel that 
is required by one who is expert at iiis busi¬ 
ness. That which is time of steam engines 
and furnaces is equally true of our household 
stoves ; and one housekeeper will manage to 
get along, and do equally as good work, with 
from one-half to one-fourth less fuel than is 
consumed by others. Now, the faculty which 
enables some to economise fuel is, iu a great 
measure, an art; that is to say, it depends 
upon experience and the skill which arises 
from manual dexterity ; but it is also a xd- 
c.ncc. and may be acquired by careful study 
of the principles which govern combustion 
and the distribution of heat; and these are 
by no means difficult to comprehend. 
An import ant circumstance connected with 
fuel in relation to its efficiency is its condition 
as regards moisture, aud the action of the 
atmosphere. Coul or wood that has absorbed 
moisture is not only disagreeable, but very 
inccouomical. Numerous carefully conduct 
od experiments show that it requires one 
pound of coal to evaporate fourteen pounds 
of water, while one pound of wood evapo¬ 
rates seven pounds of water. If therefore 
our wood pile, or our coal bin, should be ex¬ 
posed to min or snow so as to absorb mois¬ 
ture, this moisture must be all evaporated 
and carried up the chimney as steam by the 
heat produced by the burning fuel, and this 
heat is of course just so much wasted that 
otherwise might be made useful. 
But the loss arising from the fact that to 
get rid of ail moist ure requires heat, is not 
the only item of loss arising from such ex¬ 
posure. It has now been very fully demon¬ 
strated that exposure to air and moisture 
causes, in both coal and wood, a sort of slow 
combustion, which lessens their efficiency by 
from ten to thirty per cent. One of the first 
points then that demands our attention is the 
careful preservation of fuel from atmospheric 
influences. To ubo it in a damp condition in 
valves great w r aste ; but it is not enough that 
coal and wood be dry at the time they are 
used—they must be kept constantly dry dur¬ 
ing the whole period of their storage. This 
fact is fully recognized by railway com jin¬ 
nies, who always keep their wood carefully 
covered, and jiurchasers of coal and wood 
would do well to see that the fuel which they 
buy has been properly kept. Coal taken from 
a heap that has been exposed for months to 
the elements, is not as valuable, weight for 
weight, as coal that has been well kept. 
Having taken proper care in this matter, 
the nfext point is to see that, the fuel is prop¬ 
erly and completely burned, We do not by 
this refer to the mere escape of a few cinders 
through the grate, for these may be recov¬ 
ered by the use of a common screen. The 
loss of fuel which arises from that imperfect 
combination that carries our coal and wood 
up the chimney before they have given out 
more than half the heat that they are capa¬ 
ble of giving out, far exceeds any small loss 
occasioned by the existence of cinders in the 
ash heap ; and among those who arc ignorant 
of the jihenomena which occur during the 
combustion of coal the source of this loss is 
never so much as suspected. We do not al¬ 
ways remember that of all the tons of coal 
and cords of wood that we buy, the entire 
quantity, with the exception of a few pounds 
of ashes passes up the chimney, in a perfectly 
invisible form. The small amount of smoke 
that we see forms but a very small part of 
the fuel that is actually consumed, and may 
be safely left out of the calculation. Coul 
and wood are both composed of charcoal or 
coke combined with certain combustible 
gases—the carbon or charcoal forming, how¬ 
ever, the largest portion of our fuel. When 
this carbon is fully saturated with the oxygen 
of the air it forms a dense, invisible gas, gen¬ 
erally known as carbonic acid. To produce 
this gas there are required six pounds of 
charcoal and sixteen pounds of oxygen, and 
to furnish this amount of oxygen not less 
than 80 pounds of air are needed. But it hap¬ 
pens that carbon forms another compound 
containing but half the quantity of oxygen 
that carbonic acid does. This is known as 
carbonic oxide—an invisible gas which burns 
freely -with a pale blue flame that is often 
seen flickering over the bed of red-hot coals 
in our stoves, after all the gas that was origi¬ 
nally contained in the coal has been driven 
off. This blue flame is often supposed to be 
the flame of burning sulphur ; but in almost 
all cases it is due to carbonic oxide, and is in 
reality the re-burning of half-burned fuel. 
When thus re-bumed the fuel gives out just 
as much heat as it did in its first combustion ; 
and hence if we allow it to escape in a half- 
burned condition we incur the loss of just 
one-half the heat that we ought to get. And 
as the fuel is perfectly invisible while in this 
half-burned condition we are. very ajit to let 
this drain proceed without our noticing it. 
The proper remedy for this difficulty is the 
admission of a full supply of air and the use 
of thin beds of fuel. Where the fuel lies in 
deep masses through which the air lias to 
force its way, the gases continue to dissolve 
the fuel as they jiass upwards through it, and 
then they carry it off. When a brisk fire is 
needed, see that the draught is free und that 
the coal is evenly disposed in a thin layer 
over the grate. Where it is absolutely ne¬ 
cessary to have a deep bed of coal, economy 
demands the use of some form of what are 
known as gas-burning stoves, in which a 
stream of hot air is poured into the stove 
above the fuel, and thus the complete com¬ 
bustion of the half-burned but gaseous coal is 
insured. 
But it is possible to commit as great an 
error, on the other hand, by admitting too 
much air. We have just stated that six 
jxmnds of coal require eighty pounds of air 
for their complete combustion. This is a 
large quantity, but if we allow twice as much 
air to juiss in as is needed, then for every six 
pounds of coal that wo use, wc raise eighty 
pounds of air from the temperature of the 
room to about 100 degs, and then let it go off, 
carrying all this heat with it. This is just 
about the same thing as if, for eveiy six 
pounds of coal, we were to raise ten gallons 
of water to the boiling point and then throw 
it out doors. The proper remedy for this is 
to see that the coal lies in a compact mass on 
the grate—no large sjiac es through which the 
air can pus* being allowed. This involves the 
use of coal as small as is consistent, with the 
securing of a proper draught. A popular 
error in this respect, is the using of coal that 
is larger than necessary. The smaller the 
coal the fewer will be the chances for air to 
{mss through and get heated without aiding 
in the production of heat. 
When a small fire Is needed in a large stove, 
it will always be found true economy to cut 
off part of the grate by covering it either 
with ashes or a brick, or by a combination of 
both. A common brick answers very well, 
and is convenient from the fact that it is more 
easily lifted than ashes. In t b'3 way we pre¬ 
vent the upward rush of a large quantity of 
useless air, and at the some time we concen¬ 
trate the lire upon the object we wish to heat. 
These rules are simple and obvious ; but 
from the fact that the principles involved are 
not generally understood, housekeepers are 
apt to neglect or overlook them. J. p. 
-♦♦♦- 
A CHEAP EAT TRAP. 
The trap consists of a. hooked stick (fry. 1), 
a piece of straight stick about 4 inches long, 
with one end chisel-pointed and a slit in the 
other end, and a bender, or rod, about 4 feet 
long, not too stiff. A bit of string is tied to 
one cud of the bender, and a piece of fine wire 
with a noose is attached to the Btring and 
mode fast to the chisel-jiointed stick about an 
inch from the slit end. 
To set the trap, < lie hooked stick Ls driven 
fir ml y into the ground about 9 inches from 
the rats’ run, or hole, and the bender is driven 
into the ground about 3 feet from it on the 
same side of the run, or hole. The bender is 
then drawn down to the hooked stick, and 
the chisel-pointed stack is put under the hook 
and fixed in the notch, as shown in ftp, 2. The 
wire snare is put in the slit and adjusted in 
the run about 1 inch from the ground. There 
may be several traps set on the same run. 
Fig. 2 shows the trap when set.. When the 
rat is caught he pulls the stick out of the hook 
and is immediately suspended in the air, and 
is soon dead and out of the way of the next 
comer, which passes on to the next trap, and 
is very soon suspended likewise. There is no 
fear of catching game, poultry, or cats in such 
traps, as is the cese with iron o*es. w. 
