as 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JULY U 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
T. G. S. —Tho inBcct infesting yonr turnips 
is the common cabbage or turnip Aphis, usually 
called “green fly," although there are many 
different species. Dust tho plants with lime 
when wet with dew, or sprinkle them with strong 
tobacco water. Dusting with flowers of sulphur 
will usually destroy them, and if this will not do 
it, try a weak solution of carbolic acid. There 
are plenty of good and efliciont remedies for 
such pests, and one should not see a crop 
destroyed without trying to save it. 
G• W. Reardon. —We do not know of any one 
having Breton cattle for sale, but Bhould this 
meet the eye of a breeder, we hope be will 
respond for yonr benefit. 
J. A. A—Yon may destroy the ant hills in 
your orchard by soaking them with coal oil, or 
even strong brine. The ants will either ho killed 
or depart for more congenial quarters very soon. 
Asparagus plants should ho allowed to 
go to seed after finishing tho cutting of sprouts 
in spring. If you continue to cut off the tops all 
su dimer, the roots will certainly die out. The 
seed being distributed among the leaves, it would 
not he an easy matter to remove them without 
injury to tho plants. 
A Subscriber. —Wo do not know of anything 
better to make fowls lay than good food, clean 
water to drink, and a comfortable place to sleep 
in, at night. You might try I lie egg food, adver¬ 
tised, not long since, in our columns. Eight to 
twelve eggs a day is certainly a small show for 
fifty fowls. You should get at least forty, un¬ 
less a part of the hens aro sitting or have broods 
of chicks. 
E. C. JI .—Tho cartridge-like cells made of the 
leaves of tho chestnut are the work of one of 
our leaf-cutting bees, ( Megachile ) the female 
depositing her eggs in them as you have observed. 
We have no curculios which make any such cells 
as a nidus for their eggs. 
Willyou plop sc anHWer the following questions : 
1. Where can I obtain an Instrument for picking 
off apple blossoms or tlio small green apples? 
The trees boar hero every alternate year and 
this makes a glut in the market, and I propose to 
change tho year by cutting off the fruit and 
flowers. 2. How can I kill out witch grass ? 3. 
JIow is 8tramoniun ointment made ? And how 
had a poison is it ? 4. What do you think of the 
Htockbridgo fertilizers ? 5. Is there any hardy 
evergreen climbing plant, which will answer for 
this climate.o. w. <■., C audio, If. II. 
1. Or almost any dealer in agricultural imple¬ 
ments or at tho seed-stores in this city. Send to 
B. lv. Buss A Hons, Peter Hjcndeiibon, or other 
Now York City seedsmen, asking for Waters’ 
l’runing Shears, giving the length of handle re¬ 
quired, as they aro made from six to ton or 
twelve feet. 
2. Only by cultivating the land and constantly 
hoeing up every particle of tho grass as fast as 
it appears. 
fl. We have no knowledge of this article in 
the form named, but know that the plant is 
poisonous. 
i. Not having nsed it we cannot speak from 
personal experience, but conclude from the in¬ 
gredients named that it is valuable. 
5. Wc do not know of any which would with¬ 
stand tho cold of winter without some protec- 1 
tion. 
71. Ji. M .—The flower Bent is a variety of 
Muscari comosum, generally called Feathered 
Hyacinth. It is propagated by division of the 
bulbs and not by budding or grafting. Take 
up bulbH after the leaves die down and divide the 
clump. 
Cynthia //.—The caterpillars sent were bo 
badly dried up and broken that we can make 
nothing out of them. The moths are in no 
better condition. 
E. A. IV,—Generally spring is the best time 
to raise chickens, still if hens can make then- 
nests on tho ground, almost any time during the 
summer will answer equally as well. The diffi- 
cully usually experienced in setting hens in hot 
weather, and in boxes is that eggs become too 
dry, hut this may he overcome by occasional 
sprinkling with water. 
Rloise.— Never cut a lateral shoot from a rose¬ 
bush, if you wish to propagate it, but break it 
off quickly with a downward motion. It will 
then retain a minute portion of the older branch; 
the fracture will bo rough and send out rootlets 
more readily. Make your soil very wot like 
thick mud. and keep it so. Your rose-slips 
planted in this should root in three weeks. 
7\ iUiny Blackberries. —In your issue of June 
Oth yon say that nothing can withstand defolia¬ 
tion, not even tho much-abused Jerusalem Arti¬ 
choke. Did you mean to say, or infer that that 
is more difficult to suppress than the running 
P 
blackberries ? If so I sincerely pity the man 
who lias to contend with it. I have never known 
anything about the Artichoke, hut 1 do know 
something of the blackberries. I have a piece 
of ground infested with that vine and last sum¬ 
mer I thought that I would suppress them, at 
least to some extent. I cut and I pulled, and all 
roots I extracted I collected with care and put 
them where they could not got another start. I 
did hope that this spring 1 should reap my re¬ 
ward. That ground, however, is at this present 
time more than ever infested with the pest. I 
have about given np any idea that 1 can eradicate 
them without the aid of sheep. 1 find them 
among my potatoes and corn, hut I cannot pul a 
sheep there, and if I could it would not choose 
blackberries as a <Lot when it could get much 
better.— a. n. n. 
You must have some kind of blackberry to 
contend with, which is unknown to us, for we 
have killed out many an acre of tho upright and 
trailing kinds by cutting than not more than 
twice in summer. Cut off again this month and 
sec if it does not weaken thorn a little. 
Somxstir 05 x 0110111 ) 1 . 
ORIGINAL AND SELECTED RECIPES. 
Boiled Almond Pudding.— Blanch, in boiling 
water, a quarter of a pound of shelled sweet 
almonds and two ouuoes of shelled bitter al¬ 
monds. Throw thom Into cold water as you 
blanch thom ; afterwards pound them, one at a 
tune, in a mortar: adding to them, as you pro¬ 
ceed, tho beaten whites of two eggs, a little at a 
time. 1 hey must bo pounded till they become a 
smooth paste ; mixing together tho hitter and 
the sweet almonds, and removing them, as vou 
goon, from the mortar to a plate. Then set 
them in a oool place. Boil slowly a quart of rich 
milk, with six blades of beaten mace, and half a 
nutmeg powdered, and when it boils, stir in four 
tablespoonfuIs of white sugar, and set the milk 
to cool. Beat eight eggs very light—omitting 
the whites or throo—and then add to them a 
heaping tablospoonful of flour. Stir the beaten 
eggs and the pounded almonds, alternately, into 
the cold milk; add a tablospoonful of orange 
flower or rose water, and stir tho whole very 
hard. Dip a pudding cloth iuto boiling water, 
shake it out, spread it open in a largo, empty 
pan, dredge it well with flour, and pour tho pud¬ 
ding mixture into it. Tie closely, leaving suf¬ 
ficient space for tho pudding to swell. Day an 
old plate in the bottom of a pot of boiling water. 
T’nt in the pudding and boil jt very fast for an 
hour. If the water ovaporates, replenish the 
pot from a kettle of boiling water. When the 
pudding is done, dip it for a moment into cold 
water; thou turn it out on a dish. Send it to 
the table immediately, with a sauce of sweet¬ 
ened cream, flavored to taste. 
Roasted Rid. —While a kid is Bucking it is 
very fat and white, and the flesh is tender and 
delicate. It should be cooked as soon as possi¬ 
ble after being killed. Stuff it with plenty of 
forcemeat, made of bread soaked in milk, mixed 
with fresh butter, and hard-boiled yelk of egg, 
grated ; sweet, majorum and sweet basil, minced 
finely; powdered mace and nutmeg; and the 
juice an.l grated rind of a frosh lemon; all 
united with beaten white of egg, and seasoned 
with salt and pepper. Having trussed the kid, 
put it to hake in a quick oven, and baste it often 
with butter ; dredging it at the last with flour. 
Serve it up with its own gravy ; eat it with cur¬ 
rant jelly. 
Wine Fritters.- -Beat six eggs till thick and 
smooth; and when they aro quite light, beat 
iuto them, gradually. Bix tableepoonfuls of sweet 
Malaga wine, and six tablespoonsfuls of powder¬ 
ed sugar. Have ready a siiffioient number of 
largo, fresh milk biscuit, split in two, soaked in 
a bowl of sweet wine about five minutes, and 
drained on a sieve. Tut some fresh lard into a 
frying-pan, and when it boils and has been skim¬ 
med, dip each piece of the split biscuit into the 
batter of wine, egg and sugar, and fry them a 
light brown. When done, drain them well from 
tho lard. Send to the table with powdered white 
sugar sprinkled over them. 
Raspberry Cordial.—Till a large stone jar 
with ripe raspberries; cover tho jar closely, and 
let it stand near the fire or on tho back of the 
range till tho fruit is heated through so as to 
break. Then put the raspberries iuto a jelly 
bag and squeeze out the juice. Measure the 
juice, and to every quart allow a pound of loaf 
sugar. Tut the juice and sugar into a preserv¬ 
ing-kettle; give it a boil, and skim it well; when 
the scum ceases to appear, take off the kettle; 
measure the liquid, and pour it carefully into 
a large vessel, allowing an equal quantity of 
French brandy. Stir it well, and when cold put 
it iuto a demijohn or a large stone jug, and cork 
it tightly. Let it stand two weeks; then, if it is 
not perfectly clear, filter it through blotting- 
paper pinned inside the bottom of a sieve. Bot¬ 
tle it, and seal the corks. Mks. Rustic. 
WATER FOR THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 
The Fortnightly Review gives the compact 
and excellent statement of facts and suggestions 
on this subject found below. Cleanliness within 
and without is health, and water affords un¬ 
doubtedly tho sure means of obtaining it. 
No one can exist without, consuming a certain 
quantity of water, which is the essential basis of 
all drinks. It has been calculated that the body 
of a man weighing eleven stone contains sixty-six 
pounds of solid matter and eighty-eight pounds 
of water, and that he loses in various ways 
about six pounds of water every twenty-four 
hours, and this loss of water most bo supplied in 
his food and drink. In the ordinary physiologi¬ 
cal processes, nothing passes iuto the blood, 
and nothing passes out of it without the inter¬ 
vention in some way or other of water as a sol¬ 
vent. It will thus bo seen that water plays a 
most important part in relation to animal lire 
and nutrition. It is also the Agent by which the 
body is cleansed inwardly as well as outwardly, 
and it is as nocossai-y, though not quite so obvious, 
that .tho interior of our bodies should bo washed 
and made dean as the exterior. In the processes 
of nutrition—in tho physical and chemical 
changes upon which life depends—effete waste 
products aro constantly being discharged into 
the blood from the tissues of the body, and these 
have to be got rid of; for lr they are permitted 
to accumulate in the blood, tho body becomes 
poisoned by them and life is destroyed as certain¬ 
ly as if a large dose of prussic acid or opium 
were introduced from without. 
Men do, indeed, frequently die. poisoned by 
toxic agents which they manufacture within 
their own organisms. One of tho uses of water, 
taken into the body as a beverage, is to dissolve 
these effete products of the work of the organism 
and so to convoy them out of the body through 
the action of tho seoretiug organs. Water is 
readily absorbed iuto tho blood and is rapidly 
discharged from it. In its rapid course through 
the body it washes, so to speak, the circulating 
fluid and carries away, through the channels of 
excretion, substances the retention of which in 
the blood would prove in the highest degree 
harmful. It may readily he imagined that pure 
unadulterated water performs this function 
better than any modification of it which we may 
drink aR a boverago. It is, however, quite true 
that some slightly mineralized waters pass 
through the organism with even greater rapidity 
than pure water on account of tho stimulating 
action the most of them exorcise on certain of 
the excretory organs. 
Mild iUkalines may also, under certain circum¬ 
stances, prove more cleansing than pure water, 
on account of their greater solvent action on 
some substances. The quantity of water wo 
need in the form of beverage depends greatly on 
the food. With a dietary composed largely of 
Bucculent vegetables and fruit very little of any 
kind of beverage is required, Much also de¬ 
pends on the manner in which our solid food is 
cooked—whether, in the ease of animal food, the 
natural juices of tho flesh are retained in it or 
not; much, too, will depend on those atmos¬ 
pheric and other condliions which determine 
the amount of fluid lost, by evaporation from tbe 
surface of the body. The sensation of thirst is 
the natural warning that the blood wants water. 
I may here remark, incidentally, that it is not a 
wise custom to take excessive quantities of any 
fluid, even simple water, with our food, for by so 
doing wc dilute too much the digestive juices, 
and so retard their solvent action on the solid 
food we have consumed. A draught of fluid, 
however, toward the eud of digestion is often 
useful in promoting the solution and absorption 
of the residuum of this proces«, or in aiding itB 
propulsion along the digestive tube. Hence the 
custom of taking tea a few hours after dinner, or 
seltzer or soda water a little before bedtime. 
DYSPEPSIA. 
Dn. H. Y. Redfield, who has been traveling 
through the »South, Bays“ A physician in 
North Alabama, having a large practice in the 
rural districts, and of necessity stopping among 
his patients, tells me that nineteen uutof twenty 
of the meals he sits down to are of fried meat 
and hot bread. Yet dyspepsia does not follow to 
the extent one would suppose. He thinks they 
escape the disease which suoh a diet would seem 
to iuvite by the out-door lire they lead. This 
physician says that dyspepsia would he an un¬ 
known disease in the Southern States if it was 
not for hot bread and the frying-pan. Army 
life during the late war cured mure dyspeptics 
than bullets killed. I asked this physician why 
it was that in Die Eastern States, where hot 
bread as a steady diet is almost unknown, dys¬ 
pepsia was even more prevalent than in the 
Southern States. He said that it was pio and 
cake which played the mischief, in that quarter. 
Pic and cake worked the same injury to tho 
Btomachs of tho Eastern people that hot bread 
and tho frying-pan did to those of Southerners. 
Jlc thought ho would rather risk his digestion 
upon Southern biscuit than New England pie. 
The pie was the greater curse, and annually 
killed more people by slowly breaking down their 
digestive powers." 
COPPERED PEA QUESTION. 
The London Lancet hits the green pickles and 
tho preserved vegetables generally, which are 
sold in cans, and calls on the authorities to sup¬ 
press the sale of these poisons. It says that it 
will be rcgrclable if misapprehension occurs as 
to the general value and purity of preserved veg¬ 
etables. The introduction of copper to impart a 
green color to the article, was a trick of trade 
which will doubtless be abandoned by manufac¬ 
turers, now that the evil of this practice lias 
been exposed. Meanwhile, it is of course neces¬ 
sary to take measures for tho repression of sales 
made by retail dealers who have stock- on hand ; 
Ibis should, however, be done in such a manner 
as to avoid damaging tho repute of a commodity 
which, when unadulterated, is of considerable 
value. It would he an act of policy, as well as 
justice, if tho manufacturers were to recall the 
goods issued from their establishments, and re¬ 
place them by a better supply, with a new and 
easily distinguishable label, offering a guarantee 
that the article does not contain copper or any 
other foreign substance injurious to health. Im¬ 
porters might induce the Continental houses to 
enter into this arrangement, and the loss of 
credit incidental to repeated prosecutions before 
police courts would be avoided. 
- — -. 
MORTALITY IN DIFFERENT OCCUPATIONS. 
Mortality statistics, showing tho average du¬ 
ration of life among persons of various classes, 
are often faulty. In Massachusetts, such figures 
aro more carefully and accurately obtained than 
almost anywhere else, and the following table is 
the result of very recent investigation in that 
State: 
Unemployed rich, 07 years ; judges, 05 : farm¬ 
ers, 64 ; hauk officers, 64 ; coopers, 68 ; public 
officers, 57 ; clergymen, 50 ; shipwrights, 56 ; 
hatters, 54 ; lawyers, 54 : ropemakors, 54 ; black¬ 
smiths, 51 ; merchants, 51 ; calico printers, 51 ; 
physicians, 51 ; butchers, 50 : carpenters, 40 ; 
masons, 48 ; traders, 4G : tailors, 44 : jewelers, 
44 ; manufacturers. 43 ; bakers, 43 ; painters’ 
43 ; shoomakers, 43 ; mechanics, 43 ; editors, 40 ; 
musicians, 39 ; printers, 38 ; machinists, 3G ; 
teachers, 34 ; clerks, 34 ; operatives, 32 ; unem¬ 
ployed poor, 30. 
Jfnfastxial topics, 
COTTON-SEED OIL—ITS MANUFACTURE 
AND USES. 
A mono the great number of special industries 
created by cotton is the manufacture of oil from 
the seed. And although this product does not 
compare in value to sheeting, shirting, yarn, 
thread, and the remarkable variety of other cot¬ 
ton goods, yet the oil lias oven a closer connection 
with our bodies than the shirts on our backs. 
But not to begin with the end, says the New 
York Times, it is better to describe its manufac¬ 
ture before stating its destination. 
Probably there ought to be a cotton-seed oil 
mill in the country, for the seed is valuablo as 
manure and as food. Its seed is a strong ferti¬ 
lizer when crushed and composted, or when 
rotted alone; or even when plowed under whole, 
it is a material return to tho earth for its gener¬ 
osity. The dried plant itself has but little 
strength, but it helps to loosen sDff soils, and 
therefore is plowed under or allowed to rot on 
the surface when the field is prepared for a new 
planting. The seed, when prepared as a fertilizer 
by crushing, rotting, or by grinding the dried 
oil cakes, is used as guano, in lulls of corn, in 
drills of other grain, or spread broadcast on 
meadows and gardens. Another profitable use 
of the seed on a farm is to boil it with corn or 
meal and give it to cattle. It is excellent ferd 
for milch cows in this form, or as meal made 
from the pressed oil cake. 
The fanners who will sell their cotton seed at 
87 per ton, delivered at the railroad, are few in 
Alabama, happily, for the improvement of the 
country. In Louisiana and Mississippi, where 
the soil is rioh and stock is scarce, the mills get 
enough Heed to be profitable factories. There 
are about ten in those two States; in Alabama 
hut two, and they cannot get snfliedent seed for 
continuous work. Georgia, which is said to use 
now more fertilizers than any other state in the 
Union, has no oil mill. This should be counted 
a great addition to her thrift, if the bull can be 
pardoned. 
