time when Cain went in search of a wife. 
The same old story which Abraham doubt¬ 
less told Sarah Is to-day repeated by beard¬ 
less IS to sweet 16, and more; it seems to 
be just as acceptable to the interested parties 
as ever. Of course, I am not going to let the 
secret out, but all are likely to hear it when 
fate decrees. 
This talking about the cultivation and love 
of flowers is another subject belonging to 
the same category as the one mentioned 
above, and a fellow no more than gets 
through telling all he knows (and perhaps a 
little more) than along comes somebody else 
and begs you to tell it over again. Of course 
it is not the same to children, or men and 
women, but a new audience which has come 
upon the stage for the first time, aud desire 
to learn what others did, who have passed 
on to another plane in life. 
Those who to-day ask for information in 
regard to the culture of simple flowers, like 
Verbenas, Heliotropes aml^Gcraniums may 
have, been masters and misses poring over 
their school books when you told all about 
these plants two or three years ago. I con¬ 
fess to being frequently deceived in the 
flight of time, especially when requested to 
repeat some old and familiar story. Then, 
again, in some branches of knowledge, I am 
only a child myself, and when seeking in¬ 
formation of an author who presumes others 
are familiar with the subject, because he is, 
omitting the simple details for no better 
reasons, I feel bound to declare he mistook 
his calling when attempting to become a 
teacher. 
There is certainly an abundance of new 
fruits, flowers and other plauts to experi¬ 
ment with and talk about, but it is fre¬ 
quently the ease that the old are better than 
those of recent introduction, consequently 
it will not answer either to neglect or forget 
them while admiring or praising novelties. 
The new Clematis, with flowers six to 
eight incites in diameter, and of vurious col¬ 
ors, from the dark rich purple of Jaekmanii 
to the pure white of Impcrutrice. Eugenie, 
are line. Still, who would wish to dispense 
with our own native species C. V r irginic.it, 
found in almost every swamp, because there 
are others with larger and more showy 
flowers. 
By the way, these new Clematis are grand 
plants to experiment with, for the purpose 
of raising new seedlings, provided one has 
patience to wait for their blooming. They 
“ sport ” widely and seeds from a blue vari¬ 
ety mav produce seedlings with white, red, 
maroon or* various shades of the original. 
But the seeds are very slow in norm mating 
and under ordinary culture will not grow 
until the second season. A gopd way to 
handle thorn is to mix the seed with sand in 
the fall, and then bury or set tire boxes con¬ 
taining them on the north side of some build¬ 
ing- or under a tree where they will not be¬ 
come dry during the summer following. 
The next fall sow the sand and seed together 
irr good, rich soil. If all has gone aright with 
them the plants will appear the following 
spring. The next season they should be 
transplanted, giving room sufficient for full 
development. The better the care given the 
sooner will the plants come into bloom, 
table, but was not successful in attaining that 
result with the breeds known as the fancy 
varieties—the high-priced fowls. I found 
them to be coarse in ffuvor and difficult to 
fatten, although great eaters, aud therefore 
unprofitable. 
1 had seen in my neighborhood u remark¬ 
ably flue, black-breasted game cock ; his 
form and color were perfect, and, like the 
peacock, he seemed to be conscious of his 
beauty. I subsequently became the owner 
of the bird and determined to renew my ef¬ 
forts in poultry raising. Stocked with the 
gamester and a few Light Brahma pullets, 
the result was highly successful. My poultry 
will now compare favorably with the Bucks 
Co. chickens—so famous in the Philadelphia 
market. For delicacy of flavor the game 
fowl has no equal ; they uro also good lay¬ 
ers, easily fattened, and the male birds are 
very beautiful in form and plumage. What 
more could be desired to establish a standard 
cf excellence ? R. M. Ludlow. 
Oakburri, near Hudson, N. Y. 
THE POULTRY-KEEPER.—NO, 13 
DAILY BUBAL LIFE. 
THE OORKINQ.—HEN'S GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
The principal characteristic of the Dorking 
hen is its bent comb, of middle size, aud 
sometimes double and denticulated, but then 
From the Diary of a Gentleman near New 
York City. 
A BABY ENTOMOLOOIST. 
Jan. 11.—I suppose it would be useless 
to deny that Bug-huuting is a somewhat, 
contagious disease among a certain type of 
the genus homo. It is true that many per¬ 
sons ore only subject to slight, attacks, last¬ 
ing only for a very brief time, while with 
others it remains through life. The Publish¬ 
er of the Rural New-Yorker says I have 
it bad, and he certainly should know—if any 
body. But these natural history fevers seem 
to work differently upon different constitu¬ 
tions. 
Thousands of our college students get 
slightly touched with a botanical, entomo¬ 
logical or similar fever, but a box of butter¬ 
flies or a hundred specimens of dried plants 
cures nine-tenths of the number, and we 
hear no more of their labors iu this direction 
after onco leaving their alma mater. It is 
true that wl'h a few such men as Lixne, 
Humboldt and Agassiz, the disease becomes 
chronic,and far too deeply-seated to be cured 
by poverty, disappointments, or even great 
success, consequently they nobly hold out to 
the end. 
Sometimes, the disease attacks the young 
and is driven off by inconsiderate parents, 
with birch twigs, or some other equally com¬ 
mon outward application, but even this occa¬ 
sionally fails, as it seems to have done in the 
case of our well known butterfly hunter 
(Lspidopterist.) Herman Stkeckkii of Read¬ 
ing, Pa., who informed me, in reply to the 
question, “ wliun did you commence collect¬ 
ing entomological specimens 1” that he 
thought it must have been when about six 
years old. Ills memory was quite clear upon 
that point from the fact of his father giving 
him a rousing doss of “ leathe.rstrap,’ 5 as a 
cure f >r the very foolish habit he was acquir¬ 
ing of catching and “fooling away time” 
over such insignificant creatures. But, Mr. 
§TKECKBR will be obliged to step down, for I 
h ive a younger spec!men of his class to intro¬ 
duce a-i per the following letter: 
Dear Uilly Rural Life: 
Some time last, fail my wife put the baby 
on the fl >or, «rid went out into the yard for 
a few momenta, and on returning found the 
nabv bad something in her mouth. On ex¬ 
amination it. proved to be a beetle which wo 
se id yon enclosed in a small wooden box 
m irk -d Vi. K. Please examine, aud tell us 
a i ib.cat it; al o, if it would have poisoned 
the h-i v b il she swallowed it, aud oblige— 
Matthew Kline. Douglass Co., Minn. 
B e is the baby I It showed an excellent 
eve f >r colors, and I can only wish there 
were uore grown up babies who would keep 
an eye open for such things. Of course, I 
am just elfish enough to want them all for- 
war led to me. The name of the beetle sent 
is Bnprestts fasciatus, Fabr. It is about 
three quarters of an meh long, of an oval 
form, of a bright glossy green color orna¬ 
mented with four to six golden spots on the 
wing covers. It is one of our most brilliaut 
colored native beetles. It is not poisonous; 
neither can it bite or sting—at least its man¬ 
dibles are not sufficiently strong to harm 
even the flesh of u baby. Still with all these 
goo 1 words in its favor we must confess that 
it belongs to a very destructive family. The 
Bnprextidae are wood borers in their larval 
stages, and there is scarcely a kind of tree 
which is exempt from the ravages of some 
species of this quite extensive family of 
beetles. The evergreens suffer most,but out- 
fruit trees, especially the apple, are fre¬ 
quently seriously injured by the Buprestis 
cArysihothris feinorata, the larva being 
pretty generally known as the “ Flat-headed 
apple tree borer.” The female beetle depos¬ 
iting her eggs iu the cracks of the bark on 
both stem aud larger branches, where they 
hatch, the young grubs eating a passage-way 
through to the solid wood, but remain 
mainly between the bark and sap-wood. 
Many preventives have been employed, such 
as whitewashing and painting the trees with 
soft soap, but the applications must be of 
the most thorough kind to bo effectual. 
If any other Minnesota baby takes up bee¬ 
tle catching I hope to be remembered in the 
way of specimens. 
MORE TAU ABOUT FLOWERS. 
Jan. 12. — Mrs. Mary S. F. writes:—“1 
wish you would talk more of flowers, as 1 
like to read about them.” Well, it is rather 
strange that the world moves not in some 
things If It does in others. It is doubtful if 
the young ladies of to-day can catch a hus¬ 
band any better than the girls did at the 
IS FISH CULTURE PROFITABLE? 
In answer to an inquiry as to the profits of 
fish culture for their flesh only, Mr. Fred. 
Mather, a noted pisciculturist, writes to the 
Forest and Stream as follows : 
Fish culture is a broud field, and after all 
the successes which are ou record, there are 
still skeptics. Of course there are failures. 
So in all business. One party had not water 
enough ; another could not get food, &c. 
But there are others who have succeeded by 
having everything favorable in connection 
with the requsite amount of brains. One 
great drawback on private fish eulturists has 
been, in my opinion, the desire to confine 
themselves to what are called game fishes. 
They seem like boys who mingle work and 
play. Tim game Ashes are more or legs can¬ 
nibals, and it is this that raises the grayling 
in my estimation far above the brook trout, 
for the trout are piscivorous as well as insec¬ 
tivorous, while the grayling cannot eat fish, 
but thrives on t le refuse of the slaughter 
house as well as the trout does. There are 
but few places suitable for raising trout on a 
large scale, and it is only ou a large scale 
that it will pay. An ordinary spring will 
suffice to furnish a few, but to turn out a ton 
or more a year, requires not only a largo flow 
of water, but also a great quantity Of food. 
There are those who have made it pay, but 
I do not feel at liberty to publish what little 
I know of their business. Fish culture for 
profit and lish culture for sport are distinct 
things, and the following gives my ideas on 
“game fish :” 
1 . I have kept trout at. a temperature 
above 60°, iu fact as high as 75” where there 
was a good flow and consequently a rapid 
change. 2. Don’ L dam a ravine for a pond ; 
the wind will blow leaves in, which, with 
the leaves and drift brought down by rains, 
will clog the screens and the floods will carry 
everything away. 3. If you dam the ravine, 
do it high lip, and read the water in a ditch 
along the hillside into ponds, and let all 
floods and surface water go over the dam and 
down the old channel. 4. 1 find that trout 
kept at the head of my spring, where the 
temperature is '49, do not grow much, while 
those kept below, whore it is 60" and 65", 
grow rapidly, and trout fry, if lef t free, will 
work down where the water isoven warmer. 
5. Black bass, pickerel and pereli are recom¬ 
mended where the water Is tco warm for 
trout ; but these fish are all cannibals ; the 
first named is good for the table and the 
sportsman ; the second is a gormandizing 
beast, unfit to associate with decent fishes, 
and only eatable when nothing better can b.e 
had ; the third is a good little pun fish, but 
terribly destructive to other fish. 6. If I 
were asked for a list of fishes to be kept in 
waters not suitable for trout or grayling, it 
would comprise white fish, ciscoes, smelts, 
the large carp of Europe, and the square¬ 
tailed variety of catfish that is known in t.he 
Eastern States as a bull-head, horn-pout, &c. 
The indiscriminate introduction of predo- 
fishes to please the sportsman has been 
Figure 35. 
rather small. She has a small, round bod}-, 
the tail rather thin, short feet and five toes 
on each foot. The eye and the nature of the 
foot are the same as in the cock . In weight, 
shape and walk, she is much like the Crove- 
Coeurs. She lays well aud early, sits well, 
and her eggs are of medium size. 
PLUMAGE. 
The head feathers and the hackle are 
whitish at the edge, black in the middle, and 
form a marked line which is very distinct 
from the body. The edge of the cheeks and 
round the neck to under the beak are cover¬ 
ed with small, short, black feathers, form¬ 
ing a kind of collar, but not joining behind 
is more like the gorget of an officer. The 
tuft is of a clear, pale grey. The top of the 
back is of a grey chestnut brown, which be¬ 
comes russet on the shoulders and the 
coverts of the wings. The large feathers of 
the shoulders are spotted, Lhc large flight- 
feathers brownish-black. The breast is of a 
clear chestnut red ; the thighs deep greyish- 
red ; the rump grey ; the large tail feathers 
brownish black. All the plumage is of a very 
bright color, occasionally passing and min¬ 
gling with that of the adjoining part. The 
feathers are often bordered, which gives a 
scaled appearance to the whole plumage. 
But the most characteristic is a white line, 
almost pure, which mark- the whole length 
of the visible part of the shaft of each feather 
(Fig 35), This bright hue Is very apparent 
on the back, the shoulders and the coverts 
of the wing, losing its intensity at the lower 
parts aud extremities. 
Much variety occurs in this breed in re¬ 
gard to plumage, which may be found al¬ 
most of every color, from pure white to 
black. i 
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
The Dorking is very precocious and of 
very line flavor. The flesh is white, juicy 
and retains the fat well in cooking. Trussed 
it is of good appearance. Its food is thick 
dough of barleymeal or oatmeal, varied 
with ground maize and whole barley ; but 
the maize must be used sparingly as it is too 
fattening. 
The Dorking is delicate, and precaution 
should be taken against severe frosts and 
damp, and above all, that it is on a dry soil. 
cious 
carried too far, and many waters are filled 
with them that will be wanted for a more 
peaceable and j rolific fish in a few years. If 
you wish to stock a hundred acres of land 
with animals, what kinds will you choose, 
lions, tigers, wolves, weasels, &c., or cattle, 
sheep, deer and rabbits i And from which 
class would you expect the greater number 
of pounds of meat ? 
GAME POULTRY 
As much has been written in reference to 
the different breeds of domestic fowls and 
published in the Rural New-Yorker, I feel 
at liberty to offer my experience, which may 
be acceptable fe some reader who has a fancy 
for poultry and desires to select birds of fine 
flavor In preference to those remarkable only 
for size aud weight. 
For several years past I have given much 
attention to the poultry-yard, and endeav¬ 
ored to produce the very best article for the 
tV E shall be glad of contributions to this 
department from those who have made ex¬ 
periments, 
