THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
inet-work. It is too often made up in a cheap 
way—but it is susceptible of high polish. If 
furniture made from it were constructed with 
the same care given to that of mahogany, the 
cherry pieces would be nearly or quite as 
beautiful as the mahogany ones. The Phila¬ 
delphia Weekly Press speaks at length of the 
great value of this tree.... 
Professor Brewer advises the utter abol¬ 
ishment of the cesspool. 
Mr. Bliss’s (B. K. Bliss & Sons, New York) 
new pea, “ Abundance,” not yet announced 
here, is largely advertised in England for the 
coming Spring. The advertisement states 
that §1,000 a bushel were paid for the stock 
seed......... 
Pure Italians as honey-gatherers, says a 
writer in the American Bee Journal, are cer¬ 
tainly superior to pure blacks, and it would 
be well if those comparing the two, would 
consider well that the bees they have are really 
pure, which often is uot the case. He finds 
that nothing, however, equals the manner in 
which the blacks cap their honey, and he is 
certain that the bee of the future will have to 
be bred in a direct line from the black side... 
There are few pears better than the Shel¬ 
don. Try it, you who live iu the following 
States: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con¬ 
necticut, New York. Maryland, Ohio, Ken¬ 
tucky, Illinois. It is of medium size, round¬ 
ish, of a yellow-russetted color, and ripens iu 
the Autumn... 
At which end should a 
^H§g!?|||§l=s!§l hoe-handle be the larger? 
At which end should a pitch- 
fork be the larger? It is not 
-— every farmer that thinks of 
these things until his atten¬ 
tion is called to them. As 
Mr. J. J. Thomas remarks, 
the laborer who makes with 
a common hoe ”,000 strokes 
every hour should not wield 
a needless ounce. 1 f any part 
is heavier than needed even 
to the amount of half au 
ounce only, he must lift this 
needless half ounce 2,000 
times ever}' hour. A hoe- 
handle should be smallest 
— near the hoeandlorgestuear 
■— the other end ; a pitchfork 
handle the reverse. Oughtn’t 
this for one precisely similar, by a quick 
movement equal to the juggler’s legerdemain, 
and the dupe, on examining his treasure later, 
will find only rectangular pieces of brown 
paper worth one cent a pound: or the sharper 
will introduce a friend or two and induce the 
nincompoop to put up cash, jewelry, cheeks, 
promissory notes, etc., either as collateral or 
as “ evidence of good faith,” and in return the 
sharper will leave Simple Simon alone with 
the gripsack and go out “ to see a man. 
After Simon has become tired of waiting for 
his agreeable friend, he will become distrust¬ 
ful and open the gripsack, which he will find 
stuffed with the rectangular pieces of brown 
paper. If he is not an out aud-out ass, he will 
go home a sadder and an honester man, even 
if he has to “hoof it” the whole way. If he 
complains to the police he will find little pity 
or help. He was engaged in the meanest, 
most contemptible sort of fraud ge ting 
counterfeit money with which to swindle his 
confiding friends and neighbors. Neither the 
law nor its officers will extend aid to such a 
despicable rascal. The report of his roguei y 
and gullibility will travel home ahead of him, 
aud you may fancy what a reception the 
made. A good deal of subterfuge is gener¬ 
ally employed in offering the ‘ ‘ queer 
under various names ; but the character of 
the stuff is always plainly indicated. Boasts 
are made of the supreme excellence of 
the counterfeit, which, it is often hinted, has 
beeu priuted from original plates stolen from 
the Government, or from fac-similes of such 
plates, and it is usually very emphatically de¬ 
clared that the false cannot be detected from 
the real. Then, under the guise of a friendly 
interest, suggestions are made that the stuff 
could ho readily circulated in the neighbor- 
are still in it. Of the fish spawned in i 
saw nothing, and presume they were de¬ 
stroyed, as frogs and snakes had got into the 
pond, and hogs had access to the shallow 
water. The fish were pronounced by all who 
ate them a good table fish. I think the scale 
carp the better sort, but they do not grow so 
fast as the mirror carp. 
In September, 1883, I removed 16 fish from 
12 to 15 inches long to another similar pond; 
these, I expect, will spawn next Spring. Dur¬ 
ing the Summer of 1883. 1 often fished iu the 
pond with hook aud line, aud caught many 
fish from six to fifteen inches in length. They 
are game to pull after they are struck, but 
not game to bite at any bait I have tried. 
I am almost ready to say that I think the 
raising of carp can be made a success in lim¬ 
ited bodies of water, as a friend to whom I 
gave four fish in December, 1880, now has 
two of them over two feet, long, and a great 
many young try. His pond was not more 
than three feet; deep and 50 feet in diameter. 
He fed them, but not regularly. Their feed 
in my pond seems to be principally grass, 
which they root up like pigs and eat the 
roots, leaving the tops floating on the water. 
They now keep the water of the pond so 
muddy that it is impossible to see. them 
except occasionally, when 
they jump clear out of the 
water. Their principal ene- 
mies seem to be snakes and j - - ^ = 
EXPERIENCE WITH CARP. 
Last. February I received 
one'dozen German carp from 
the Fish Commissioner for 
this State. I had a pond 
about 50 feet square and 
seven feet deep prepared at 
the head of a small stream. 
It had a gravelly bottom. 
The fish received little or no 
attention through the Sum¬ 
mer. About September I 
commenced feeding them 
with flour and corn meal 
mixed into a stiff dough. 
A few weeks ago the water 
was drawu off in order that 
the number and condition 
of the original carp might 
be ascertained. Six of tbe 
original fish weighed on an 
average six pounds each, 
while the water left in the 
ditches appeared to be alive 
with young carp from one- 
and-one-half to six inches iu 
length, aud there are doubt¬ 
less many thousands of them 
produced from the original 
stock. The pond contains 
no other fish. In the Sum¬ 
mer a thick growth of water 
plants flourishes iu a part of 
the pond, furnishing plenty 
of food for the fish. Those 
received from the Commis¬ 
sioner were about three 
inches in length. W. b. j. 
Harrington, Del. 
M. Poirot suggests cover¬ 
ing the ground about grape¬ 
vines with the branches 
and leaves of the artemesia. 
He has noticed that insects 
do not trouble this plant, 
and he believes that it might 
repel the phylloxera. 
Now, remember, a dark, 
well-ventilated cellar hav¬ 
ing a temperature as low as 
possible without freeziug, is 
the best, place to preserve 
the potatoes. Do you waut 
to sell your potatoes in the 
Spring free from rot or mil¬ 
dew for a good price?....— 
You should be thinking 
about sowing tomato seeds. 
Prepare the pots to be placed 
iu sunny windows to be re¬ 
moved to the mantel or set 
in a wann place during cold 
A NEW “RURAL” TOMATO. Prom Nature.—Fig. 33, 
threatened with infection, ttic common pi no¬ 
tice was to sprinkle brimstone on a hot 
shovel or ou hot coals on a shovel, and can \ 
the burning result through the house. But 
uow this simple method of disinfecting has 
gone out of fashion without any good and 
sufficient reason. The Builder thinks that it 
is because nobody can patent it and soli it for 
25 cents a bottle.. 
Milk from unknown cows should be boiled 
in order to destroy any possible germs of dis¬ 
ease .... • • • • • • • * • .. 
In the Orange County Farmer wo read of a 
case where iu 18 months carp grew to the size 
of three pounds. There was but one pond, 
and that but cue third of an acre In area am 
four feet deep.•. . 
From recent investigations there seems lit¬ 
tle doubt that the contagion of typhoid fever 
may easily bo conveyed in milk. •••••* 
Charles Downing says that the Kieffei 
Pw,r is inferior to our best varieties for eat 
offer to sell is an insult to the receiver’s good 
sense aud honesty; for it is sent on the suppo¬ 
sition or hope that he is a gullible, greedy, 
mean, tieacherous rogue. 
good bill is on top of the box to provide 
against a cursory examiuatiou before paying 
for the thing; uuder that is some worthless 
matter, generally sawdust; hence this sort of 
roguery is known by the name of the 1 sawdust 
swindle.” A letter in the box warns the dupe 
that he has been guilty of a crime which has 
rendered him liable to imprisonment and dis¬ 
grace, and thus he is generally frightened 
into silence. 
If the deluded simpleton goes to New York 
or to any other large city from which he may 
have received the letter, he is pretty certain 
to be swindled. After a good deal of hocus- 
pocus, he will be shown Treasury and Na¬ 
tional Bank notes of various denominations, 
all “as good as the genuine"—for, to avoid 
“accideuts,” they really ure all genuine in most 
cases. The sharper will offer to sell them at 
almost any price, though he will generally put 
the price as high as he thinks the other will 
pay, making a generous discount on large 
orders. He will load a gripsack or other 
handy receptacle with bundles of notes befoie 
4 bn ovoc r,t tlia crrppdv snidireou. upon whom 
THE EYE-OPENER, 
From Maine we have received one circular 
letter and another from Northern New York, 
both of which were sent out by Mr. A. J. 
Bell, of New York City, who offers lots of 
counterfeit money at a very advantageous 
discount. W itbin the last half-dozen years 
we have seen quite a considerable number of 
printed circulars, aud lithographed as well as 
hand- written letters making similar offers; 
and of course all bear a strong family resem¬ 
blance to each other. Indeed the sameness of 
the tricks of swindlers and sharpers is a very 
strong proof that they are not nearly so smart 
as they are commonly supposed to be. They 
usually follow old methods, which they have 
not originality enough to vary. Ibis co mter- 
feit money swindle is nearly always conduct¬ 
ed in the same way East, West, North and 
South; for though the rascal who started it 
may have had something of a criminal genius, 
hid followers have beeu only slavish imitators 
SAMPLES AND COMMENTS, 
Sir J. B. Lawes says that he has now mu 
head of cattle ou his farm, while formerly he 
had less than a dozen. 
MR. Robert Douglas has for many years 
advocated the planting of the Wild Black 
Cherry. Horatio Seymour, indorsing ull that 
Mr. Douglas says, remarks that It outgrows 
all others. Again it furnishes a larger pro¬ 
portion of serviceable timber, because it sends 
up usually a single straight, ceutral stem, and 
does not separate into many and small 
branches. It also commands a good price iu 
the market, and will continue to do so, be- 
oause it makes excellent aud beautiful cab 
Mr. 1'etkr Henderson thinks very bignn 
[ the new White Plume Celery. He finds it 
as good as any other celery, and it keeps as 
ell, while owing to its color there is no nee< 
ha’tever of banking up. He says it will rev- 
lutionize the culture of celery for the reason 
