Vol. XLII. No. 1765. 
NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 24, 1883. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18S8, by the Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
distinct from the plum, and of equal rank 
with the peach and the apricot, not admit¬ 
ting that it is even a variety of the plum, 
(Pruuus domestical, the same as the nectarine 
(var. of P. Persica. l 
The fact that plum trees are now almost 
free from black-knot, along with the uniform¬ 
ly good prices obtained for the fruit, of late 
years, occasioned in part by tbe canning fac¬ 
tories, has turned the attention of many 
planters to the cultivation of this fruit. 
Most of the planting for some time has been 
done in large orchards, by men who make a 
specialty of the plum, realizing from their 
crops many thousands of dollars annually, 
and at present only a few small orchards are 
in preparation for planting. It is also evi¬ 
dent that many farmers still lack sufficient 
confidence in the health of the tree and the 
trustworthiness of the crop, to provide them¬ 
selves with a few sorts for family use. Still 
there are indications of an early and rapid 
spread of interest in plum culture, making 
that fruit more popular than ever before. 
Prices have varied somewhat with the color 
of the fruit: but in case of the blue sorts the 
prices have been generally increased with the 
size, so that the Quackenboss has brought four 
times as much as the little round Blue Gage— 
Azure HRtive. The large kinds are liked by 
canners, evaporaters and housekeepers. They 
are more easily picked and handled, and are 
proving more profitable than the smaller 
sorts. Good kinds embrace Blue Imperatrice, 
Bradshaw, Red Magnum Bonum, Duane's 
Purple, and one of the new seedling plums, 
the Shipper’s Pride, brought to notice four 
years ago by Mr. H. S. Wiley, and now con¬ 
trolled by Wiley & Mersereau, Cayuga, N. Y. 
It has sustained all the claims made for it at 
the first, proving to be very productive, trust¬ 
worthy and attractive, rivaling in size the 
Quackenboss, and possessing firm shipping 
qualities. 
The Lombard and Copper have long been 
recommended and planted; but they have 
not brought the highest prices, and the Lom¬ 
bard especially is short-lived and tender¬ 
skinned. Hence it has often beeu picked a 
long time before it is ripe, and caimers have 
been putting np this green fruit, evidently 
losing thereby some fine quality, if not caus¬ 
ing positive harm to consumers. Among 
good yellow plums above medium size 
are Bavay’s Green Gage, Jefferson, Coe’s 
Golden Drop, and Denniston’s Superb. 
Washington is unproductive, and Yellow 
Egg decays somewhat before beginning 
to ripen. 
However absurd the assertion may at 
first seem to many, the truth is the plum 
weevil must be regarded as a benefit in¬ 
stead of a pest. Without its aid, what 
agent is there to thin out the fruit and res¬ 
cue the trees from overbearing t Just 
figure the time required by manual labor 
to remove one-third or one-half of the 
green fruit directly after blooming time: 
then reckon the broken twigs and injured 
branches. 
To be sure Nature has her own remedy, 
and many of the green plums drop off 
through lack of sustenance. Still not 
. enough always fall to preserve branches 
V from breaking, and never enough to al- 
' low the ripening of a crop of superior 
sc fruit. Recently published opinions of 
peach-growers, exhibit the profit of thin- 
■jT 5 nmg fruit, and the plum weevil is doing 
good service iu this line in some peach 
orchards, though in others it is causing a 
- . damage. The past season, had there been 
- a little insect to cut off clusters of greeu 
grapes of the Delaware and some other 
lands, many a negligent grape-grower 
would have been benefited in crop and 
THE COUNTRY SCHOOL-HOUSE. 
In the past it has been customary to con¬ 
sider the country school-house either as a log- 
house, such as has been and is still frequently 
seeu in Southern and Western States, or the 
typical red, clap-boarded school-house of old 
New England, from which have graduated so 
many of the scholars of that enlightened 
laud. 
But the day of the log-cabin aud little red 
school-house has gone by, and in their places 
we see tasty, little buildings of modern archi- 
tectural design, in which are combined both 
beauty,convenience and health. Hard.straight- 
baeked seats, bare walls, aud a cold, cheerless 
room, never have been, and never will be, 
welcomed by the American school-boy or 
school-girl as pleasaut accessories in a study- 
room. 
To accomplish the greatest aud best result 
in the youthful mind it is essential that the 
surroundings be pleasant and cheerful; that 
the school-house be a place where the young 
scholars will love to congregate, rather than 
what many young people consider a gloomy 
prison, where several wear}* hours must be 
passed, five days in tbe week. Figs. 67!* and 
680 present to our readers a plan of a school- 
house which we have had redrawn and re- 
eugraved from the Transactions of the Michi¬ 
gan State Teachers Association’s Report The 
plans represent simply a frame building, iu 
which arc combined economy, beauty aud 
healthful construction. The plans referred 
to represent both front and rear views of the 
same structure. Fig. 081 (page 771| gives the 
general plan of the ground floor, which can be 
readily understood. 
In the construction of these buildiugs it will 
be well to observe a few hints, which we copy 
from this report, viz.: “The floors should be 
doubled, or deufeniug put in uuder them. 
Another good way to construct these build¬ 
ings, which is practiced much iu some sec¬ 
tions of this country [Michigan), is to put a 
coat of plaster on lath, between the studs, 
commonly called back-plastering. Inside 
walls uud ceilings should bu plastered, uud 
one coat of plaster should always extend to 
the floor, if a two-story building. The ceil¬ 
ings of the first story uiay be ceiled up. 
Roofs should always be provided with gut¬ 
ters and conductors, and these be connected 
to drains, to carry off rain water to some 
friendly ditch or cistern. Doors to all kinds 
of school buildiugs should be rnudf wide, aud 
to open outward; windows should be made 
with sash hung by weights, and so that the 
top aud bottom sash can be opened. Stair¬ 
ways leading to upper stories should be wide 
and easy to ascend, and so arranged that no 
jam can occur on the lower floor, if all the 
scholars from the different rooms should wan, 
to leave at the same time. Cloak rooms 
should be well lighted, and at least 10 inches 
clear blank wall apace^should be allowed for 
each scholar. Head Tights over doors should 
be made to opeu without the use of step- 
adders.” 
■J.SiAl*. 
yt ' f - sm«m 
Front View of a Country School House 
chicken, or beef. These facts explain in a 
measure the somewhat cloying nature of the 
fruit, and the fact that it is sometimes dis¬ 
agreeable in cases of weakened digestion. The 
finer table kinds possess a rich, luscious flavor, 
surpassed by very few fruits. One writer says 
that combined in plums are the qualities of 
both peaches and pears. This was the first 
northern fruit known to commerce in a pre¬ 
served state, and the process of converting 
plums into prunes, or “ French plums,” as 
practiced iu Europe a century ago, did not 
differ greatly from the methods of evaporu- 
tiug fruit at the present day. With the re¬ 
cent easily regulated evaporators, there 
remains only a proficiency in the proper ma¬ 
nipulation of plums to produce prunes in this 
country equal to the finest imported grades. 
The word “prune” is being more commonly 
recognized as the name for dried plums, 
aud should, like raisins for dried grapes, be 
entirely restricted to that use. by disusing it 
as the name for certain plums. All prune- 
trees are plum-trees. Those trees bearing a 
long, oval and peculiarly one-sided fruit, are 
pretty generally designated prime trees, but 
not always. The Lombard Plum is in some 
places called a prune, aud iu some proviuees 
and countries all plums arc known as prunes, 
while in many sections the German Prune is 
called a plum. Fruit nomenclaturists make 
no distinction between plums aud prunes, aud 
have given to only nine varieties standard 
names, while over 50 “prunes” appear on the 
list of synonyms. Botanists certainly do not 
recognize the prune as a sub-genus, or even a 
race or marked variety; yet some tree ageuts 
tell people the prune is a fruit free entirely 
PLUMS. 
Above all the fruits of temperate climates 
he plum takes rank for nutritiousness. Ac 
cording to the tables, it contains a larger pro¬ 
portion of nutriment thau the peach, cherry, 
or grape, a third more than the apple, over 
twice that of strawberries, ten times that of 
melons, and is reckoned equal to mutton 
Rear View of a Country School House. Fig. 680, 
