THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MARCH 46 
Domestic (fronomij. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY MAPLE. 
SIFTINGS FROM THE KITCHEN FIRE. 
ANNIE L. JACK. 
It is the gray dawn of a March morning, cool 
and clear. The frost has made slight fantastic 
shapes upon the window panes in the kitchen, 
for the lire is out. But it is not cold, and the 
canary wakes up and shakes hiB feathers with a 
lively twitter, while we proceed to clean out the 
ashes and soot before lighting. It is loss trouble 
in the ond, and quite a piece of economy to do 
this rather distasteful bit of work oftener than 
is the general rule. I draw on a pah * 1 2 3 of old 
gloves long at the wrist, have a good turkey’s 
wing fastened to the end of a stout stick, and a 
poker with a bent end. Thus equipped, soot and 
ashes are lifted easily, the latter with an old 
trowel, into the ash-pan, and all plaoedin a large 
brick bin in the cellar. The “ siftings” from the 
kitchen fire are treasures for the garden in sum¬ 
mer; for wo burn dry Maple and Elm, with a 
mixture of Cedar and Pine when we wish an 
extra blaze, and save every particle of this val¬ 
uable fertilizer. 
But while I am talking to you, my hands have 
beeu busy, and the kettle is now sending forth a 
long column of Bteam for our coffee. Do you 
think this a pernicious drink in the morning ? 
Well! perhaps it is not according to the laws of 
hygiene, for we like it strong; but the“guid- 
man” must have Lis Java, and I do not say 
“nay.” Wo use tbe ooilee-pot with a single 
strainer, grind the berry after the kettle boils, 
and throw it in dry; use no egg or egg-shell to 
clear; simply pour on the boiling water, shut 
the lid quickly, and let it Bitnmer but not boil, for 
three or four minutes. Our coffee is then a rich 
amber color, pleasant to eye and taste, while the 
tight and quick closing of the lid (and if one 
could take tho trouble, a cork in the spout,) and 
the standing to 6ettlo without any stirring, re¬ 
tain the aroma that ie lost if tho coffee-pot is ex¬ 
posed to an after pouring on tho water. 
Does it seem fussy over small details ? Ah! 
my dear, life is made up of little things, and on 
these a great deal of our happiness depends. 
The lire has burned down to a bed of clear coals; 
rake them down, and you can make a few shoes 
of toast, for there is nothing like tho coals of a 
wood fire for giving the flavor to this breakfast 
dish. Didn’t kuow toast had flavor? Then you 
have never tasted it made at a coal stove, when 
by carelessness it imbibed a taste of the gas. 
And now wo can close the dampers ; the rest of 
the breakfast is ready, and with a fresh stick 
the fire will smolder till needed. 
METHOD OF HANGING UP THE WASHING. 
“ W it ex wo build, I am going to have a place 
in tho house whore wo can conveniently hang 
the olothes to dry.” This has been one of my 
sayings every stormy washing day since wo wont 
to housekeeping until recently. “ When we 
build,” however, is still an indefinite time in tho 
future; hut I have found a way of hanging tho 
clothes in-doors during the drying process, 
which is so simple and easily done, that I want 
tho Rural housewives to know of it. Thus I 
decided to tell them while comfortably hanging 
a large washing in our dining-room yesterday, 
while tlie wind and snow were holding a grand 
carnival outside. 
All that is required are four strong nails, a 
line, and two windows or doors opposite, or 
nearly so. Drivo a nail in each corner of the 
casing of oither doors or windows, and tie the 
rope so that there are two lines passing from 
window to window 1 parallel with each other. 
The manner of hanging up tho clothes is 
where the advantage is gained. Wo will begin 
with towels. Take two clothes pins, and pin one 
corner upon the line; then take tho comer op¬ 
posite and pin upon the second lino, and let it 
hang between tho cords. With pillow slips, fast¬ 
en one-half upon the first fine, the other half 
upon tho second, thus only using as much of the 
lino as tho clothes pins arc wide. For table¬ 
cloths and sheets, use four pins, one for each 
corner. A large washing in this way can be 
hung upon a short hue. but strong nails are re¬ 
quired. One can have the clothes ready and 
hang them in the sitting-room where it is warm, 
and they will be dry and ready to take down be¬ 
fore the family are astir in the morning. 
I am very enthusiastic over this plan. I trust 
it will please the lady readers, and should it 
make the washing-day easier for any of them, I 
shall rejoice. m. l. b. 
--- 
DOMESTIC RECIPES. 
Oatmeal Porridge. 
Will you please be so kind as to give recipes 
in your department for making Oatmeal For 
ridge also Chocolate (breakfast drink) ? By so 
doing you will greatly oblige a 
Six Miles, Ala. “ New Subscriber.’’ 
Ans.—P ut one pint of water into a stew-pan 
over the fire and as it boils, dredge in two small 
tablespoonfulB of oatmeal with your left hand 
stirring with the right; boil slowly from twenty 
to thirty minutes, stirring almost constantly. 
When made turn into a soup-plate and add salt, 
sugar or spice to taste; have heated one-half 
pint of now milk which should he added to tho 
porridge as it is eaten. 
Obocolat c. 
To each quart of new milk, or half milk 
and water, allow throe heaping tablespoonfuls 
of scraped chocolate. It is best to set a 
ooffec-pot, or any convenient dish, into a kettle 
of boiling water; pour in tbe milk aud as 
it heats add the chocolate mixed to a paste with 
a little milk ; boil for two or three minutes and 
sorve. Some prefer to boil chocolate only one 
minute, others fifteen, while others boil it one 
hour, Betting aside to cool that tho oil may be 
removed aud then reheating ivhcu wanted. 
Can’t some of the farmers' wives give us more 
recipes in which buttermilk is used ? 
Norfolk, Conn. L. r. Stevens. 
Queries Answered. 
Will you please to toll me what will remove 
white paint from a black silk, after it has be¬ 
come hard ? S. Me. C. 
Ans.—C hloroform is excellent for the removal 
of dry paint from all sorts of clothiug. Portions 
of dry white paint which resist tho action of 
ether,turpentine,or alcohol are at once dissolved 
by chloroform. 
rioase tell me if there iH any thing I can mix 
with tallow which will harden my candles ? 
Young Housewife, 
Ans.— Allow one pound of alum for overy five 
pounds of tallow. Dissolve the alum in a kettle 
with a little water, add the tallow and stir until 
melted together, then run into molds the usual 
way. This makes a candlo as hard and white as 
wax—that is if the tallow is pure. Another way 
is to add to each pouud of tallow ono-fourth 
pound of common rosin aud melt together. 
This last, although au improvement upon the 
common tallow candle in hardness and lighting 
power, is not in color. 
Is there anything that will remove iodine 
stains from bed-linen ? w. n. r. 
Ans.— Apply rectified spirits. 
IIow shall I cleanse chamois leather so that it 
will be soft after the process ? Emma B. 
Ans—D issolve a piece of borax, the size of a 
hiokorv-nut, in sufficient warni water to wash 
the chamois. Use good hard soap and rub tbe 
leather well with tho hands in every part. 
Wash in this way in two, and if the chamois is 
very soiled, in three or four waters, rinsing at 
last in clear, warm water in which a piece of 
borax has been dissolved, the same as before. 
Squeeze out hut do not wring, snap, stretch 
slightly aud hang before the fire. A s it dries, 
stretch from tirno to time—this last is impor¬ 
tant. 
(Enfotnalopal, 
SLITTING BARK. 
Dear Mr. Mann :—“Have you had any ex¬ 
perience in slitting the bark of trees that are 
hide-bound ? Do you know of any entomologi¬ 
cal reason against it ?" Ed. Rural. 
In the twenty-fourth annual report of the 
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agri¬ 
culture for 1876, p. 83, the term “hide-bound” 
is applied to tho checking of the circulation in 
tho stem of a tree, and your correspondents,— 
Prof. Beal and Mr. T. T. Lion, on p. 44 and 71 
of tho present volume of the Rural New-York¬ 
er, seem to have a similar understanding of tho 
torm; namely that the trouble comes from tbe 
root. It tho trouble is not caused by tho tight¬ 
ness of the bark, then, of course, there is no oo- 
caBion for relieving that lightness. The ques¬ 
tion is only whether the trouble is caused by 
tightness. As this condition of tightness is 
natural and inevitable in all trees, it is difficult 
to understand why it should he look< d upon as a 
disease or a condition requiring treatment. 
As to cutting tho bark lengthwise, to give the 
wood more room for expansion, it does not 
seem, after President Clauk'b experiment on 
tho squash, that we need to trouble ourselves 
about tho ability of tho wood to break its way 
out when it is ready. I do not know that, hotan- 
ically, there would ho any perceptible injury to 
tbe tree from this operation, for it is stated in 
tbe volume for 1874 of the itoports above men¬ 
tioned, ii. 239, that the separation “of the 
bark from the wood by the combined action of 
frost and sunshine is not uncommon in the ap¬ 
ple and other cultivated trees. If a severe frost 
separate tho water from tho wood as ice, and it 
then thaw r s and freezes again before it can bo re¬ 
absorbed, it will be likely to burst the bark or 
tissues in which it iB accumulated. This usually 
results in one or more cracks through the bark 
on the southerly side of the tree, from which 
there is, in the case of the apple tree, commonly 
a slight flow of crude Bap in tho following April 
or May. The outside of the hark is blackened 
aud the detached portions die.” 
In an earlier part of the same Report for 1874, 
p. 531, an account is given of an experiment 
showing that ono eighty-fourth of tho Datura 1 
amount of wood w r aa sufficient to supply nour¬ 
ishment to the whole natural amount of foliago 
of a Hibiscus, for tho period during which the 
expei-iment lasted; and in other parts of the 
treatise from which these extracts are taken,it is 
shown that considerable mutilations of bark can 
be repaired by the plants experimented upon. 
I do not know whether there are any fungi 
which wonld attack the wounds in the tree, but 
thero are certainly some insects that would 
pouuco eagerly upon any such wound and find 
lodgment therein. 
The Plum curculio (Conotrachelus Nenuphar) 
comes forth from its winter retreat sometimes as 
oarly as the 30th of March, and different individ¬ 
uals are engaged in tho deposition of eggs from 
the middle of April until the end of July. Nat¬ 
urally they ooposit their eggs in fruit of various 
kinds, but although not tho cause of tho “black- 
knot" of plum, cherry and other trees, these 
beetles sometimes breed in tho “knot” and 
would he likely to deposit thoir eggs in any 
wounds of the bark of these trees, where they 
would breed nnobserved. 
The Apple Buprestis (Buprestis femorata) be¬ 
comes a perfect insect at the last week of May 
and contrives daring Jane and tho forepart of 
July to lay her eggs upon the hark of the trees, 
especially “where the bark had previously been 
killed from eome cause, and almost invariably 
according to report rnado to Dr. Fitch, on tho 
south side of tho trees.” 
The Apple Baperda (Saperda bivittata) makes 
its appearance, every year, early in Jnne. In 
the course of Juno and July she lays her eggs, 
one in a place, upon the bark, low r down, at or 
very “ near the surface of the earth ;” or “when 
these beetles are numerous, Bomo of their eggs 
are placed higher up, particularly in tbe axil3 
where tho lower limbs proceed from tho trunk." 
Ab soon as tho eggs hatch tho grubs begin to 
feed on the inside of the bark. 
The Woolly Apple-louse (Eriosoma lanigcra) 
sucks the sap of the bark and of the young wood 
immediately under the bark from spring through 
summer until late in the fall or even in whiter. 
It lodges in crevicoB of the bark and causes warts 
to grow there, making the tree diseased and 
fiually killing it. 
1 have found also under the bark of ap- 
plo-trecB what seem to be the caterpillars of the 
pear-tree borer (Nigeria pyri,) w’hich becomes a 
moth in the autumn, and lays her cggB again on 
the bark. 
Thus it may bo seen that at no time of the 
year can the bark be wounded without thereby 
becoming more readily subject to the attack of 
important destructive insects. Yours, 
B. Pickman Mann. 
(For other Queries see page ITS.) 
Miscellaneous 
Tlease answer the follow ing questions through 
the columns of your valuable paper: 
(1). I have a Black Walnut and Maple floor iu 
ray dining-room. Can you tell me how to wax 
it? (2). Explain the process of obtaining spring 
wheat. Is it obtained by sowing winter wheat 
iu tho spring ? (3). Are eggs from pullets as 
good for incubating as others ? Mrs. s. w. c. 
(1) . Cut into email bits six and one-quarter 
pounds of yellow wax and stir into a hot solution 
of throe pounds of pearl-ash in rain-water. Stir 
constantly while boiling. The mixture iB at first 
quiet, but soon commences to effervesce. As 
soon as this ceases, add tlireo pounds of dry yel¬ 
low ochre and pour into tin chub. Whou wanted 
for use, melt one pound of tho mixture iu two 
and one-half quarts of boiling wator and apply 
while hot to tho floor with a paint-brush. This 
will dry in a few hours, after which the floor 
should be polished with a large floor brush and 
then rubbed with a woolen clcth. 
(2) . Thero is no difference betweon spring and 
winter wheats except by cultivation. Tho one 
is oouverted into tho other by successive sow¬ 
ings iu spring or fall. 
(3) . There is no difference that wo aro aware of. 
Varieties of Pelargoniums. 
L. 8. IP.—Please name inolOBod Gerauium 
and oblige 
Ans.— It is a Zonal Pelargonium—not a Gera¬ 
nium. There are perhaps a thousand varieties 
lik e the ono you inclose, with differences so 
slight that it would be difficult to tell one from 
the other unless compared together. Hundreds 
are named one year to bo forgotten the next. 
WHAT THEY SAY OF IT. 
THIRD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 
STILL ALL THINK IT “SPLENDID.” 
[The letters we have received from those who 
havo earned Rural “ Cricket” Clocks, are very 
gratifying indeed. In the crowded state of our 
columns this week, we cannot find space for all 
that wo would he pleased to publish. We beg 
to Btato that fifteen cents forwarded to us will 
prepay expressage. Twenty-live cents may bo 
charged by tho express oompauiesif collected on 
delivery.— Eds.] 
MY LITTLE FRIEND. 
Mv pet has but two little feet, 
Aud yet ho runs all day. 
As merrily and tirelessly 
As if it all wore play. , 
lie chirps away a lively some 
To cheer my every task. 
And he is wise, my little friend, 
And tells mo all I ask. 
That he is lettered, one could tell 
By lookiuK at his face, 
And all his works arc widely known 
For nicety and jrraue. 
’ And yot ho shows no pride, because 
Of his most favored Case, 
But over holds his slender hands 
Before his modest face. 
1 thank the Rural publishers. 
Who sent this friend to me; 
May willing hands reward their works, 
Their time pass merrily! 
Paincsville, O. Minnie D. B. 
The “ Cricket” was received by express, all 
right. When I took it out of tho box, the chil¬ 
dren exclaimed, "Oh, it is a silver clock!" It 
oouldn’t be a prettier ornament for my parlor 
mantle-pieco if it were solid silver. We haye had 
it now five days, and in that time it has neither 
gained nor lost one minute. The old pendulum- 
regulator has been deposed, and we now regula te 
our household by the “ Cricket." Mr, T-in¬ 
formed mo ho had sent you two names aud had 
ordered tbe “ Cricket” for himself, hut thought 
it must ho some no-account, ohoap contrivance, 
or you could not offer it so liberally. I showed 
him mine, and all ho wants to know now is, 
“ now you do it?” 
Boonvtlle, Mo. s. o. n. 
The premium roceived. The Rural “Crick¬ 
et” chirps cheerfully, not on the hearth, but on 
the nail, and its handsome presence is a constant 
reminder of a large reward for a small service. 
It chirps aud keeps time with those clocks for 
which we have paid five and ton dollars. It is a 
charm, au ornament, and a convenience to the 
whole family. ,t. b. 
Anuvllle, Lebanon Co., Pa., March 3, Isis. 
I am in receipt of your beautiful premium, 
the “ Cricket.” I am free to confess that I felt 
it was possible that your offer was in too glowing 
termB; but a glance at tho beautiful and sub¬ 
stantial time-piece, has convinced me of my 
error. I submitted mine to a practical clock- 
maker, and he pronounced it a marvel of beauty 
and simplicity. Accept my warmest thanks. 
Edmund Y. 
Brantford, Ont,, March G, 1878. 
' The “ Crieket" Clock received all right. Has 
proved to bo a good time-keeper, running in auy 
position; aud it is certainly worth double the 
amount you charge for it and tho Rural togeth¬ 
er, to any one having any use for a timepiece. 
Waterford, Va., March 4,1S7S. J. h. 3 
We havo boon very much disgusted with some 
premiums we havo received for newspaper work. 
We tell yon frankly, tho “ Cricket” Clock is a 
true, a liberal reward for our two names, and we 
shall do all wo can for tho Rural New-Yorker. 
Hempstead, N, Y. a. m. s. 
Our Clock was at the Express office when I 
wrote you that we had not received it. It is a 
Gem, as you represent it, and we are altogether 
satiefied. M. A. u. 
Detroit, Mich., March c. 
Your Clock received by Express. It is all 
right, seems to keep good time, and we thank 
yon. r - 
Cincinnati, Ofilo, March 5. 
We value our “Cricket” Clock highly. It 
keeps good time and can be regulated, no doubt, 
to keep exact time. It is all you say of it, and 
you may publish this as my honest sentiment. 
Akron, Ohio. 8 * Mi 
It is the prettiest clock I have ever seen. You 
are very good. 
Jackson, Mich. c - 
My daughter is much pleased with the “ Crick¬ 
et.” It goes woll. B> B - 
