MAR 28 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
for i\)t X)omt 0 . 
YOUTHS’ HORTICULTURAL CLUB 
OF THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Mart L. Barnard: Beans are divided in 
two classes; the Bunch or Dwarf bean and the 
Pole or Running bean. Among the bunch 
beaus we have in Kansas the Early Yellow, 
Early Valentine ami Black and White Wax 
that make nice tender string beans. Also the 
White Navy or Soup bean which is our best 
dry bean. Among the pole beans we have the 
delicious Butter beau and the Dutch Case 
Kuife. Mother has a yellow pole bean which 
we do not know the name of; it is very hardy 
the beaus often lyiug in the grouud all Win¬ 
ter and coming up in the Spring aud the vines 
will bear considerable frost; the pods are ten¬ 
der and nice to use as string beans, aud they 
are excellent shelled either green or dried. 
We plant beans as soon as the grouud gets 
warm, as most varieties will rot if planted too 
soon. We plant the early kinds in hills about 
two feet apart, and in rows three feet apart 
putting four or five beans in a hill and culti¬ 
vating them with a hoe keeping them free 
from weeds, but we do not hoe them when the 
vines are wet, as doing so will make the leaves 
die. Eor our main crop of soup beans we plant 
twice, first in May, aud again the last of June 
so as to make sure of a crop in spite of the dry 
spell which comes earlier some years than 
others: these we plant in hills from 15 to 18 
inches apart, w r e put in two beaus to a bill 
in rows four feet apart. They are cultivated 
with a cultivator between the rows and the 
weeds kept down with a hoe between the hills. 
Pole beans are planted in bills from three to 
four feet apart and five or six beans in a hill. 
As we live near creek timber we are not par- 
ticlar what kind of wood we use for poles. 
Beans cook readily in soft water: if cooked in 
hard water they should be parboiled fifteen or 
twenty minutes in water in which a teaspoon¬ 
ful of soda has been dissolved, to a quart of 
water; after parboiling they can be seasoned 
with cream butter or a piece of meat. We 
have never raised the Scarlet Runner. Beaus 
raised on alkali ground will not cook as read- 
ly as wbeu raised ou other ground. 
Clarence Croop: I like beans very much 
in any way. 1 thiuk the Marrow Bean the 
beat for winter use, and 1 think the Butter 
and Ivory Pod Wax are the best for string 
beans. 1 plant, mine three feet apart one way 
and 18 inches the other way, so that we can 
cultivate them and hoe them; but beans should 
not be cultivated when wet, for it blasts them. 
We bad quite a variety of kinds. We have 
the London Horticultural, Large Lima, the 
Butter Bean, and the Ivory Pod Wax, the 
Early Six Weeks, and the Holden Pod Wax. 
We have an enemy to the bean. It is a bug 
that is a good deal like the potato bug. It is 
smaller than the potato bug, and is black. It 
eats holes in the pod, and makes them rot. 
They just eat the yellow pods. 
1 send you mamma's recipe for cooking 
beans: 
Soak the beans over-night, or par-boil them, 
then take a piece of pork about equal parts— 
lean aud fat—wash well, and put iu the bot¬ 
tom of a crock or some kind of dish that can 
be covered closely, and put the beans on top, 
and bake for 34 hours, as nearly as possible. 
Season with pepper, if you like, the pork 
makes them salt enough; they are splendid. 
John Applegate: We raised small Lima 
Beans for market last year, selling them 
shelled, while green, and one unfortunate day 
I gave a bushel of pods to six fine hogs. They 
ate them with a relish, bat it was their last 
comfortable feed, for the sharp points of the 
pods killed them. I do not know of any 
other variety of beans that has so sharp a 
hook; but do know, to my sorrow, that Small 
Lima pods are not safe feed for bogs. 
John E. Durkes; The Early Rachel is a 
good early bean; the Ivory Bod Wax and the 
Black VV ax did better than any others with 
us, but the Black Wax was the best. The 
Black Wax can be planted every little while, 
and thus have them fresh and tender all the 
season. For climbing beans we use paw paw 
poles. The Dutch Case-Knife is a good pole 
beau, either green or dry. The Large Lima 
does not do well here in Missouri; the small 
ones succeed well and bear heavily; the Bear- 
let Runner blooms well, but does not set any 
beans; it will make a good ornamental vine. 
I have never seen any bean vines or beans fed 
to cattle and hogs; but my grandfather, liv¬ 
ing iu Los Angeles, California, fattened his 
pigs for slaughtering on them, and says they 
fatten rapidly: when he killed them, a few 
weeks ago, they weighed 275 pouuds each, 
and were only ten months old. i have noticed 
that the climoing beans twist around the pole, 
against the sun, aud have read that in Brazil 
below the equator they turn just the reverse. 
Please let us hear what some of the other cous¬ 
ins have to say about this The way I have 
seen beans put away for Winter is to gather 
them off the vines after they are dry, shell 
them out of the pods, tie them up in paper 
sacks, and put them out of reach of mice and 
rats. The way green beans are cooked is to 
boil them with a piece of pork, or boil iu water 
till tender, aud then make a gravy on them 
of milk, pepper, salt, and a little butter. 
Uncle Mark: You have done well hoys 
and girls in this discussion, and 1 want to thank 
you for the pleasant words you wrote about 
our department that there was not room to 
print with discussion. In closing it, a few 
statistics though usually thought very dry, 
may interest you. In the statistics printed in 
1880 giving the amount of the bean crop during 
1879, I find that Colorado had uo beans at all, 
Wyomiug only 18 bushels, aud then the crop 
increases in other States aud Territories up to 
1,303,444 bushels iu New York. The entire 
number of bushels in the United States during 
that year was 3,075,050 bushels of dry beaus, 
those used green are not counted in these fig¬ 
ures. Canada sends some beans beside, into 
the United States each year. We have sev¬ 
eral subscribers in Australia and South Amer¬ 
ica; are there no girls or hoys there who can 
tell us whether the beau vines twiue with the 
sun, south of the equator? We will be glad to 
welcome any such to our club even though it 
takes several weeks for letters to come so far. 
If we could all gather around a table spread 
with beans cooked in every palatable way as 
the close of our discussion, wouldn’t we all en 
joy the time? 
• • * - 
A BOOK FOR THE AGRICULTURAL 
LIBRARY. 
RUFUS W. SMITH 
Sometime last year, I wrote au account of 
the way by which I came into possession of 
some of my books relating to agriculture. I 
have become the owner of another valuable 
volume of 8(16 pages, 12x18 inches, beautifully 
illustrated, indexed and replete with the latest 
and most practical agricultural and horticul¬ 
tural information. I have received this 
volume in fifty-two different install inputs, thus 
giving me time to mentally digest the contents 
iu a thorough manner. Now to get these fif¬ 
ty-two numbers into one volume—where they 
belong—I have adopted the following simple 
method:—I laid the numbers in numerical 
order, evenly and one above auother. I took 
two strips of tough wood 15 inches in length, 
wide and K-iach in thickness. I made 
three holes in each. With an awl, I pierced 
three holes through the volume, laid one of 
the strips beneath and one above, and then 
with a darning needle, I rau a stout string 
through the holes and tied the ends tightly'. 
When finished, my volume looked like the 
above illustration. I once tried binding the 
strips, biit the weight of the volume upon the 
strings when opening and closing soon caused 
them to cut through the paper at the back; 
but with this method, the pressure is all against 
the strips, and makes a permanent and cheap 
binding. 
- » ■» »- 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Makk: — 1 looked in your 
columns iu the Rural New-Yorker, and I 
Raw some letters printed which were written 
by some boys and girls, so J thought I would 
write and tell you about uiy pet cat. His 
name is Tom, and he stands 10 inches high 
and is 83 inches long from the tip of his nose 
to the tip of his tail, and he weighs 13 pounds. 
He is also u trick cat, and I have taught him a 
number of tricks, such as playing leap frog, 
playing dead, aud lyiug on his back: some¬ 
times he will go to sleep on his hack. Hoping 
this will interest, I remain, yours truly. 
Kings Co,, L. I. willard spraguk. 
[I had the pleasure of seeing Tom, and it 
was very entertaining to see him spring over 
Willard’s shoulder; he is trained to do it, be¬ 
fore touching the meat given him, and he does 
not try to begin eating until he has taken his 
leap; then he eats his meat with great satisfac¬ 
tion. He is a fine big fellow .—uncle mark.] 
gHfaffllanrouo % 4vr rtijsing. 
Two Well Known Editors. 
One of the busiest religious editors in Phila¬ 
delphia, as well as one of the most successful, 
is the Rev. Victor L. Conrad, of the Lutheran 
Observer. He is the ofti -e editor, while Ins 
brother, the Rev, F. W. Conrad, D.D.. is the 
editor-in-chief. Professor V. L. Conrad gives 
his whole time and effort to the work of mak¬ 
ing the Lutheran Observer the valuable sheet 
it is. He was, comparatively, a short time 
ago, a broken down invalid. Now he is as 
hearty as anybody need want to be. 
In the iuterestof overworked editors,broken 
down literary men, and exhausted ruen of busi¬ 
ness, one of our writers paid a visit to Pro¬ 
fessor Conrad a few days ago, aud had a pleas¬ 
ant and practical talk with him. Professor 
Conrad was seated iu his editorial chair “push¬ 
ing things’ for the coming issue of the Observ¬ 
er. aud thus be informed us: 
“There are few people who become as weary 
and worn as braiu wor kers. By long and un¬ 
remitting overwork with the brain, 1 was bad¬ 
ly' run down, aud brought into a con ’itiou of 
great nervous weakness. M y stomach was in 
poor condition. My digestion was bad. If I 
ate a hearty meal I felt heavy aud dull, I had 
a general feeling of good-for-nothingness. I 
was unable to perform my editorial duties 
with satisfaction. In this state 1 realized that 
something must be done, and that right 
promptly, or I would become a confirmed in¬ 
valid. This was six or eight years ago. 
“From the experience of others, 1 knew 
something of Compound Oxygen. I would 
have been inclined to he a little skeptical about 
it, but 1 kuew of the case of Mrs. Kelly for¬ 
merly Miss Horuhrook. I knew how prostrat¬ 
ed she had been; au apparently hopelesss case 
of spinal injury, I thought that if such a case 
as hers could be reached by Compound Oxy¬ 
gen, mine was not beyond its power. 
“To make a long story short, L took the 
treatment, l saw at once that it was not one 
of the class of remedies which do their work 
in twenty four hours, For this I liked it all 
the better, and 1 gained confidence in it. i 
began to improve; first a little, then more de¬ 
cidedly, but gaioiug all the time. Before long 
that miserable feehug of good-for-uothingness 
was gone. My nerves were toned up. My 
stomach improved, and eating was no longer 
the cause of torment. I was able to do my 
work. My recovery was a simple aud pleas¬ 
ant process. No nauseous meiiiciue to take; 
no unpleasant operation to endure. I could 
experience the pleasure of restoration and still 
atteud to my literary duties. I continued the 
treatment until my health was fully restored, 
and I could perform my editorial labors as 
felicitiously as ever. 
“You ask me if I ever have occasion now to 
return to the treatment. Yes. I do sometimes. 
There are times when I am mentully jaded 
from overwork and consequent fatigue. Then 
I take a few inhalations of the Compound 
Oxygen, and it seems to renew my vitality and 
act with immediate effoct.” 
Well, Professor, how about the case of your 
brother, the Rev. F. W. Conrad, DD. ! 
“His restoration by means of Compound 
Oxygen is a wonderful instance of the efficacy 
of that method of treatment. His nervous 
system was completely shattered. His wus 
an aggravated case of overwork followed by 
too severe doses of powerful drugs. For 
several mouths he was entirely laid aside. 
After beginning a course of treatment with 
Compouud Oxygen, his improvement soon 
followed. The first effect was that he was 
able to enjoy healthy sleep, to which he had 
long been a stranger. Then bis whole system 
was toned up. His digestion, which had been 
greatly disordered,became natural and hearty. 
A marked improvement in his sight was one 
of the most notable indications. One eye had 
long been sightless, and the other was weak. 
But the sight of the remaining eye became 
much clearer and more reliable. He is now 
busy among the churches as well as attending 
to his duties as editor-in-chief of the paper. 
He travels much of the time, while 1 attend 
to the office duties, and the detail of the 
editorial labor. He stands the fatigue of 
travel wonderfully well. He is preaching al¬ 
most every Sunday, and delivering frequent 
addresses. 
“Both ray brother’s case and my own are 
of interest to the overworked thousands who 
cannot take a week’s rest or a day’s rest from 
their wearying labor. I think literary men, 
business men, aud overworked clergymen as 
well,ought to know more about this Compouud 
Oxygen; it is so simple, so efficacious, so easy 
of application, aud so certain in cases of dis¬ 
ease which the physicians consider almost be¬ 
yond hope. Its applicability to a wide range 
of diseases seems to me to bo one of its highest 
merits. It is entirely free from everything 
like empiricism, and produces the best, results 
by the natural and direct way in which it acts 
on the vital organs of the system, repairing 
waste, and making good the ravages of dis¬ 
ease and decay.” 
A “Treatise. on Compound Oxypen,” con¬ 
taining a history of the discovery aud mode 
of action of this remarkable curative agent, 
and a large record of surprising cures in Con¬ 
sumption, Catarrh, Neuralgia, Bronchitis, 
Astlnna, etc., and a wide range of chronic 
diseases, will be sent free by Drs. Starkey & 
Palen, 1109 Girard St., Philadelphia, to any 
one w r ho will write to them for it. 
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