MOOBE’S BUBAL WEW-YORKEB, 
MAY 24 
Alia nr of a 
DAILY RURAL LIFE. 
From the Diary of a Gentleman near New 
York City. 
PIANTINO TENDER BULBS AND TUBERS. 
May 6. — Although the weather remains 
cool, one may commence to plant tender 
bulbs and tubers with safety. Those which 
have been kept dry and in a dormant state 
through winter, being buried entirely in the 
earth when set out, there will be no danger 
of even slight, frosts injuring them, and by 
the time their stems and leaves appear above 
ground warm weather will certainly have 
come. 
The Cannas, of various species and varie¬ 
ties, are great favorites of mine, and I plant 
them plentifully about my garden, always 
placing them in groups or masses instead of 
cultivating as single specimens. There are 
so many beautiful sorts in cultivation that 
one would find it a difficult task to determine 
which dozen or more were really the most 
desirable. Their tlowers are very showy and 
of various shades of crimson, scarlet, orange 
and yellow, still they are considered of 
secondary importance, for it is the large and 
handsome leaves which give to the Cannas 
their principal value as ornamental plants, 
The leaves of ('. nlata nutcrophylla arc two 
feet long by one broad, and of a rich, glossy, 
green color, while C. discolor riolaccn has 
leaves nearly as large but of dark crimson 
color. The leaves of some a re striped or 
veined, and they also vary greatly In form as 
well as size. In good, rich soil the plants 
grow' from three to eight, feet high, resem¬ 
bling somewhat a mass of Banana plants. 
This tropical appearance adds much to the 
value for cultivation in our Northern gardens. 
Persons who cannot afford to purchase the 
plants (although the tubers are sold very 
cheap by our florists) cau purchase seed and 
procure a fine variety for a few' dimes. The 
seed should be soaked in warm water a few 
hours before sowing ; and if started curly, a 
fair show can be made with the seedlings the 
first season. As soon as the first frosts cuts 
the foliage, and before the plants freeze 
down, lift the roots and set them away in a 
dry, warm place until spring. The tubers 
multiply very rapidly, and may be divided to 
almost any extent, as every bud or eye will 
grow and make a good, strong plant in one 
season. 
CALOCASIA ESCUtENTUM. 
Next to the ('annus the I'aloensia, or, as it 
is more commonly called, the Ottladiutn es¬ 
culent mu, isour most showy tuberous-rooted 
plant. There are many species and varieties 
of these plants cultivated by our florists, but 
the 0. e.s culeulum is the most common as 
w'cll us valuable for bedding out. The leaves 
are of immense size—four feet long by two 
broad is not uncommon upon large, str ong 
tubers planted in rich soil. They are also 
rapidly multiplied by offsets, or small tubers 
formed on the sides of the old ones. These 
plants should be placed where they will be 
protected from strong winds, else the leaves 
are likely to be broken. This species has be¬ 
come naturalized in some portions of the 
South, and the roots are used for food, hence 
the specific name, esculentum —meaning edi¬ 
ble. Tu warm climates the tubers remain in 
the ground throughout the year, but in our 
Northern States they must be lifted as soou 
as the frosts kill the leaves, and the stems 
must be cut away—at least the upper portion 
—after which place the tubers in some dry, 
warm place whore they will keep perfectly 
dry. The tubers must be examined frequent¬ 
ly, and as the outside leaf-stalks decay, pull 
them off until nothing but the round tuber 
remains. If the tubers are not kept in a dry, 
warm place, they will surely decay. This 
plant does not bloom when cultivated in our 
Northern gardens, but this is no great loss, as 
the flowers are neither large nor beautiful. 
TIDR1D1AS, TUBEROSES, ETC., ETC. 
The. Mexican Tiger flowers (Tigrid-ias) are 
pretty little bulbous plants, with very showy 
but delicate flowers. The T. conch(floru, 
flowers orange-yellow spotted with brown, 
and T. paeon ia, bright scarlet spotted with 
yellow and brown, are the t wo most com¬ 
mon species. Tigridias and Tuberoses are 
probably almost os well known as the potato, 
and the plants may be multiplied almost as 
rapidly ; still the florists and dealers find no 
diminution in the demand, simply because 
the amateur, as a rule, loses his plants every 
winter and has to purchase a new stock in 
spring. The cause of this loss is carelessness 
in not keeping the roots sufficiently warm 
and dry during the cold weather. The bulbs 
should be thoroughly dried in the fall, then 
spread upon shelves in a warm room or put 
into coar ■ bags and hung up in the hottest 
place in I he house. They -will withstand 
almost any degree, of heat that will not actu¬ 
ally cook them. Dahlias, on the contrary, 
may be kept too dry and warm, for the 
tubers will quickly shrivel and be destroyed 
if placed in a position most suitable for Tube¬ 
roses and Tigridias, If the tubers are well 
cleaned of dirt when taken up, they will 
usually keep sound upon shelves in any ordi¬ 
nary dry cellar, or when packed in dry sand 
or chaff. In planting, the clumps of tubers 
should be divided and only one bud attached 
to a tmbwr preserved. Professional florists 
usually propagate the Dahlia from cuttings 
of young shoots, but amateurs seldom do this, 
for the tubers answer every purpose. 
GLADIOlll. 
These are my favorites, and of all the Lily 
tribe I consider them the most desirable. 
For brilliancy of color, symmetry of form 
and abundance of bloom, we have no bulb¬ 
ous plant that will equal the Gladiolus. They 
are easily managed, requiring no more skill 
in cultivation than an onion, and the bulbs 
arc as readily preserved through winter. By 
planting a few bulbs early in spring and 
others a little later, a succession of blooms 
may be secured through the summer and un¬ 
til frosts appear in October. 
AN APPRECIATED COMPLIMENT. 
May 7.—I have just read t he compliment 
which Mrs. J. T. N. of Brenham, Texas, be¬ 
stows upon me, on page 304 of the Rural 
NKW-Y oRKRR. Of course 1 appreciate the 
compliment; for even an old man like my¬ 
self should not be indifferent to the good 
will of the ladies. Mrs. “Ruralist” is not a 
bit jealous when a lady compliments me, for 
she says a husband that no woman except 
the wife admires must be a poor stick of a 
fellow at best. There arc hundreds of men 
whose daily life and exjK'rience is far more 
varied than mine, but there arc few who dare 
or care to let the public share t heir miseries 
or pleasures. There are far too many fences 
in this world besides those used on our farms, 
and most of us are so exclusive that we for¬ 
got what is due to our fellows, and by fencing 
ourselves in we at the same time exclude 
many u blessing that would otherwise be 
added to our store. My object in writing 
this “Diary” is to make its readers think 
and work to some purpose, and not always 
look upon the dark side of life, 
SEEDS FROM CALIFORNIA. 
Mrs. H. C. Mokeley, Union City, Mich., 
sends me some seeds which she has received 
from California, and desires me to give their 
names. There is supposed to be a limit to 
human knowledge, and 1 am quite certain 
there is to mine, for it falls far short of being 
able to name the seeds of all the native plants 
of North America. 1 wish such an amount 
of wisdom was mine; but, alas ! it is not, and 
I shall have to wait until plants are produced 
from the seeds sent before attempting to 
name them. 
BEETLES MORE RARE THAN DIAMONDS. 
May s.—In the cabinet of a very celebra¬ 
ted entomologist residing in Philadelphia, 
there lias been for several years past, a single 
specimen of a very pret ty beetle known as 
Nebria virescejis , Horn. It was described in 
the Transactions of the American Entomo¬ 
logical Society, page 100, 1S70. This speci¬ 
men being the only one known to our ento¬ 
mologists, it was a greater rarity than a dia¬ 
mond. From whence it came no one knows 
positively, but the suppositions were that the 
northwest, coast was its habitat. Not long 
since a correspondent of mine, who resides 
in Oregon, sent me quite a collection of bee¬ 
tles, which he hud gathered about his farm, 
and among them I found twentv-flve of this 
rare Nebria. Of course these make me in¬ 
dependently rich, for 1 have not only enough 
of tins rare beetle for my own cabinet, but 
am able to give away four-fifths of my pos¬ 
sessions and make several entomological 
friends happy in the receipt of a present 
from my bountiful store. Methinks I hear 
some one say “What a fuss about a little 
beetle.’’ Sure enough ! But what a fuss 
there has been mude in this world about 
much less tilings, and no one was made hap¬ 
py, as in this, and similar instances, where 
men study nature for the sake of acquiring 
knowledge. We have our little love-feasts 
and pleasures over these minute creatures in 
spite of the jeers of those who do not know 
what it is all about. 
■ 
Petrified Moss.— The “Petrified moss” I 
sent Us from McGregor, Iowa, is not in reality' 
a petrifaction, but merely a deposition of 
lime /mm water as it passed through or over 
moss. The moss becomes incrusted with lime, 
which hardens thereby, retaining the form ; 
lint the moss entirely decays, and not the 
least vestige remains. “Calcareous tufa” is 
the usual name applied to these deposits, 
which are abundant in all limestone regions. I 
STATE ENTOMOLOGISTS AND SUCH. 
Dear Rural :—Some of your Editors and 
Correspondents do not like what I said in 
the Ohio Farmer about the economical value 
of Dr. Fitch’s entomological researches, etc. 
I am always willing to be criticised in what 
I do say and mean, because I always say it 
on purpose ; but I am not willing to be 
placed in a false position before the readers 
of the Rural New-Yorker, in whom I 
have had a personal and editorial interest for 
several years past,. 
First, then, do not understand me as op¬ 
posed to scientific or any other liberal educa¬ 
tion or teaching. I am an advocate for the 
utmost development of the human mind in 
all departments of learning, for such us like 
it and can afford it. My life has been de¬ 
voted to the hard practicalities of industrial 
affairs in behalf of men and women who earn 
the bread t hey eat and the clothes they wear, 
and who know by experience what it costs 
of labor and self-denial to make an honest 
living. 
The State is a pauper, the State is a bene¬ 
ficiary, the State luis no money to use or to 
give away, except as it takes it out of the 
pocket of the producer, and if it takes that 
money wrongfully, the State is a robber. 
The producer bears the State on his shoul¬ 
ders. Without production there would be 
no commerce, no law, no divinity, no medi¬ 
cine, no merchandising, no anything. Then 
the State should not give away the people’s 
money without the clearest warrant of ne¬ 
cessity or utility. Different people have dif 
ferent ideas of tilings. There is your Mr. A. 
S. Fuller, one of the best fellows iu the 
world ; but Mr. Fuller would think more 
of discovering a new species of bug than he 
would of discovering a new planet, and he 
has a right to his own notion ; but he has no 
right to maintain his notion at the expense 
of people who do not care so much for bugs 
as they do for plants, and vice versa. 
To secure appropriations of the people’s 
money, by the State, for carrying ou ento¬ 
mological, geological, anil other like research¬ 
es. the plea of economic necessity is always 
set up. and this is most likely to be a false 
pica in the main, since often either the im¬ 
minent necessity does not exist, or the rem¬ 
edy is out of the reach, of the would-be bene¬ 
faction. An expensive commission is put 
under pay, chiefly because they arc hungry 
for a job. 
You instance Dr. Fitch’s contributions to 
the knowledge of the wheat midge, etc. Let 
me take yon away back of that:—More than 
forty years ago, when the wheat midge be¬ 
came most destructive to the wheat crop of 
New England, 1 was a farmer lad in the fine 
region of the Champlain Valley, where I 
sowed, reaped and threshed wheat with my 
own hands. When the midge infested our 
fields, we studied his habits and tried all the 
dodges we could think of, by sowing very 
early and very late, by procuring early and 
hardy varieties, and thus, by dint of close 
observation, learned all that is known now 
of practical value in dealing with this pest, 
long before authoritative science in the per¬ 
son of Dr. Pitch or any other man, came in 
with learned explanations, which We are 
now told were worth millions of dollars to 
the country 1 I can’t see it in that light. 
And this is only one sample of nearly all like 
discoveries within the last fifty years of my 
experience and discrimination. 
The editor of the Rural was very right 
(in the No. for April 12) when lie presumed 
that I was opposed to public swindles on 
“the principle of the thing.” Yes, I do 
oppose all manner of leeches on the public 
treasury, and especially those which come 
in the false guise of rural benefactors. Our 
country has been very unfortunate in the 
out-come of its public appropriations in this 
line ; the dull mediocrity of the National 
Department of Agriculture, and the lament¬ 
able perversion of our system of Agricultural 
Colleges, show a sad falling from the high 
promise of their projectors ; and this last 
public disgrace of the jobbing Commission¬ 
ers to Vienna, may well admonish us that 
virtue can be very weak, intelligence over¬ 
estimated and confidence abused. So I say 
—let every tub stand on its own bottom. 
Cleveland. May, 1873. S. D. Harris. 
We do not agree with our friend, that the 
State is a pauper. The State is the people ; 
and the people are not paupers ; if the peo¬ 
ple use money unwisely, the State is not ne¬ 
cessarily a robber ; but if it is. it? only robs 
itself, which is not j obbery in the strict sense 
of the term. It is one of the false notions 
that has obtained and is obtaining in this 
country, that the people and the government 
are not only distinct but antagonistic. They 
are not distinct, hence they cannot be antag¬ 
onistic. Any appropriation of money, how- 
evei*, which does not. promote the general 
welfare, is unwisely appropriated. But a 
State appropriation of money to employ an 
Entomologist, is just as legitimate, if the 
people think one is necessary, as an appro¬ 
priation to pay the Governor of tho State for 
executing the. State’s laws or the people’s 
will. The only question for the people or the 
State to decide is. Does it pay to employ an 
Entomologist l That is the question at issue 
between friend Harris and the Rural New- 
Yorker. Ho thinks it does not pay ; we 
think it docs. Of course, it does not pay the 
State to keep men in sinecure positions and 
pay them the people’s money, any more than 
it pays a farmer to keep and pay men who 
render him no service ; but the people, like 
the farmer, arc alone to blame, for they alone 
delegute the power which perpetrates such 
folly. The State cannot give away the peo¬ 
ple’s money except the people consent; and 
if they consent to permit it to be used wrong¬ 
fully they alone arc to blame. Wo do not 
advocate other than a wise use thereof. 
Mr, Fuller might think more of discov¬ 
ering a new species of bug than a new planet; 
but he would not think more of doing so than 
of discovering a new plant, or a new use for 
one, or whether a plant is useful or not. lie 
recognizes the fact that the insect world is 
related to the vegetable world ; and he long 
ago learned that the vegetable world has its 
friends and its enemies among the insects ; 
his studies in Entomology are therefore made 
with a view of knowing his friends from his 
enemies—of learning to distinguish between 
the useful and the (apparently) useless. No 
farmer will pretend that it is not well to 
know a noxious from a useful plant; nor 
that a fact which helps him to discern be¬ 
tween his fi icnds and enemies is valueless to 
him. 
Our friend Harris’ knowledge concerning 
the wheat midge, learaed on the Vermont 
farm, may have been useful to him ; but has 
he made it useful to others ? The wheat 
midge was known and written about one 
hundred years, Hourly, before onr friend 
Harris ever saw it; and if lie had known 
what hud been written—the history, habits 
and parasites of the insect, lie might not have 
found it necessary to try so many “dodges” 
to avoid the depredations. Dr. Fitch’s “dis¬ 
coveries” in this matter did not amount to 
so much ; but his knowledge and researches 
were placed in compact form before the 
farmers of the State, and hundreds of them 
profited thereby ; but who ever heal'd of Col. 
Harris’ experience, in detail ? 
It is scarcely necessary, though proper, to 
say that the Rural New- Yorker joins hands 
with Col. Harris in opposing all sorts of 
swindles, public leeches, &c., &e., no matter 
in what guise they may come ; but because 
there arc Credit Mobiliers and venal Vienna 
Commissioners, and perversion of law in its 
letter and intent by our Agricultural Col¬ 
leges, we are not going to oppose all meas¬ 
ures which require the co-operation of and 
benefit the people as a whole, without any 
doubt. 
BPAYING SOWS. 
Edward Berwick writes to the Pacific 
Rural Pi'ess as follows:—Your correspondent 
(McC.) may be glad of a better description of 
the above process than your extract from 
Moore’s Rural New-Yorker furnished. In 
the first place get a long, slim pocking needle, 
beat it ill the lire and bend the point a good 
deal; then temper and sharpen well the point 
and both edges of the flat part. Provide 
also some stout saddlers’ thread. Starve the 
sows long enough to insure emnty intestines, 
not long enough to distend them’ with wind. 
Hang thorn by the hind legs at a convenient 
hight, and fasten a cord from their snouts to 
the. bottom of the fence to prevent, as much 
as possible, their moving. Then, in a young 
sow, make a longitudinal incision in the belly, 
commencing between the first pair of teats 
(counting from hind legs) and cutting the 
opening Targe enough to admit the fingers. 
In an old sow, begin between the second and 
third pairs. Find the * pig-bag' (womb! and 
feel along one side of it until the ‘ pride.’ a 
small, dull-red substance of shape of a rasp¬ 
berry, is found; cut it off without injuring the 
bag, and then do similarly on the other side. 
In sewing up be very careful to get hold of 
all the skins (integuments) with each stitch. 
Take three or four stitches and tic each sep¬ 
arately in a square knot, but don’t draw 
tight enough to pucker up the skin. Let 
your thread be doubled two or three time?. 
Feed sparingly and let them wallow in t he 
mud. 
