%A 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
for t\jc jDxrntig. 
MUD WASPS. 
UNCLE MARK. 
he sub-order of insects to which 
the wasps belong, includes also 
the bees and ants. This sub¬ 
order is the highest among in¬ 
sects, its members show more 
wisdom and intelligence in the 
buildiug of their nests, in the 
care of their young, and the 
gathering of food, than any others. The mud 
wasps are near the foot of the class among the 
wasps, those building paper nests being wiser, 
but the cheerful, busy mud-daubers are inter¬ 
esting, and as they do not sting unless greatly 
provoked, they are pleasant to study. Tbeir 
tunnel-like mud huts are built in July,the wasps 
find some moist spot where they cau shape the 
mud into round balls for tbeir mud houses 
which are made of these little pellets laid to¬ 
gether in rows; when finished the houses are 
somewhat three-sided, beiug quite flat ou the 
side attached to the rafters, or walls, upon 
which they are built. These wasps love the 
sunlight aud do their work by day; their bod¬ 
ies are light and compact and their wings 
strong so they are able to fly swiftly to and 
fro, carrying the balls for the walls of their 
nests. One egg is laid in each cell, at one end, 
and in the remaining space food is stored up 
for the little wasp to eat while in the larva or 
worm-like form. The dainty store laid up by 
this mother wasp for her young is made up 
altogether of spiders. If a nest is opened in 
August or September the cells will be found 
to hold spiders of various colors, and where 
the wasp ate its last meal there will be an 
empty spider skin. In order that the spiders 
may keep fresh and good until all are eaten 
the mother wasp does not kill them, but stings 
them in such a way they are paralyzed but do 
not die, and they look as t'resb if the nests are 
opened, as though they had just stepped from 
their webs. When the cells are filled with 
this curiously preserved meat, they are sealed 
up with the same material used in building 
them, aud the young are left to take care of 
themselves. Alter they have eaten all the 
spiders they change from the larva to the 
pupa, spinning about themselves a very thin 
brown cocoon, that looks very much like a 
bottle closed a t one end with a darker sub¬ 
stance that resembles a cork. The pupa is not 
attached to the cocoon bat it lies loosely in it 
and almost straight. The pupse spend the 
Winter in these cocoons within the cells of 
mud completing their growth and emerging 
full grown wasps. Thus they go through three 
chauges duriDg their existence: from the egg 
to the larva, then changing into the pupa,and 
finally becoming the winged wasps as we 
often see them. 
The insect world, that has all Winter been 
sleeping, rolled up iu cocoons of all shapes 
and sizes, and carefully stowed away iu places 
ofsafety, will be, already is, awakening. You 
have seen it in a general way every Summer, 
look more closely this year, you will be re¬ 
paid for the looking. 
LETTERS FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Mark:— Papa has taken the 
Rural for a great many years until last year, 
and he thought he had so many papers that 
he would not take it, but he found that he 
could not get along without it this year. And 
that is the reason I did not write to you last 
year, but I will try to make it up now. The 
seeds you so kiodly sent me I put with 
mamma’s iu a bed about eight feet long and 
six feet wide and we took care of them to¬ 
gether, and I don’t know which was the 
prettiest, they were all so pretty. Mamma 
had so many house plants that there 
was not room enough for them iu the room 
where the fire was so Papa made her a large 
flower-room, just off of the dining room, and 
we keep a tire all night and they do not freeze 
at all. Mamma has lots of birds, and I had 
one but I traded it off for a pair of Brahma 
chicken?. I have a nice yearling heifer. We 
had about 800 bushels of potatoes, fiflO of corn, 
195 of oats, St> of wheat and S5 of buckwheat. 
Yours truly, lynne o. greenwood. 
Westchester County, N. Y. 
Uncle Mark: I am ten years old, and 
have belonged to the Club four years. My 
little brother Ralph, who is seven years old, 
wants me to send his name, he has had a 
flower bed for several years, and last year I 
gave him part of my seeds. We have our 
windows full of plants all Winter; a good 
many of them are in bloom. Among the rest 
we have primroses and hyacinths which are 
quite fragrant. 1 don’t see why there are not 
more primroses kept. They bloom all the 
time and 1 have never seen an insect on them. 
They are very hardy too; if you don’t get water 
on the leaves they will stand almost anything 
else. It has been very cold here this Winter.tbe 
mercury has been down to 4U C below zero three 
times, aud it doesn’t often go lower than 86 
degrees here. The snow is over two feet deep 
on a level, and has blown so much that the 
trains couldn’t get through some of the time. 
Last week there were five days that we didn’t 
have any mail, but now we are having some 
nice warm weather. Among the Rural 
flowers last Summer, was one we thought was 
chamomile, when it first came up; it smelled 
like it, but it grew three or four feet high and 
had small yellow flowers. 1 send some seeds 
in a paper; would like to know wbat it is. 
Then there was another grew about two feet 
feet high, looked like a very small sunflower, 
same color but the flowers were not more than 
an inch across. We were in hopes it was 
pyrethrum; was it? Now, Uncle Mark, I 
would like to ask if we can grow chestnuts, 
walnuts and wintergreen, as far north as 
this? If we can we are going to plant some. 
Truly yours, 
EDNA M. and RALPH M. ALDRICH. 
Mitchell Co., Iowa. 
[The seeds are not of the chamomile as that 
has white flowers. The suuilower-like plant 
was probably pyrethrum. I think your home 
is too far north for the chestnut, walnut would 
perhaps live. The winter green ought to be 
quite hardy in Iowa.— uncle mark.] 
Dear Uncle Mark:—I will be ten years 
old next month, my Pa takes the Rural and 
he has had good luck with the seeds sent out. 
1 have had a little garden for two years. I 
raised White Elephant potatoes, beans, onions, 
lettuce, etc. Some of my vegetables were 
better than Ma’s. I have no brothers or sis¬ 
ters, but I have a nice cat I call Jim, a bob- 
tail dog aud a canary I call Dick. During the 
Winter the snow in the lane between here 
and the school-house was four or five feet 
deep, I bad to walk the fence part of the way 
to get there. I guess you haven’t many 
nieces aud nephews in ludianaas I have never 
seen any letters from this part of the country. 
Yet this is a nice farming country and there 
is plenty of nice stock aud the farms are very 
good. I will write again about my garden 
this Summer. Yours truly, 
La Porte Co , Ind. henry c. w. WOLFORD, 
Dear Uncle Mark:— I have just been 
reading the Cousins’ letters in the Rural 
New-Yorker, aud thought I too would like 
to join the Y. H. Club. In Sept, 1881, I left 
my home in Portsmouth, Eng., and cauie to 
Canada. Since my arrival here, my home 
has been with Mrs. Carpenter at Winona. 1 
like my home aud adopted country very much. 
In Summer, 1 have a garden, where I raise 
flowers and all kinds of vegetables, I like 
gardening very much, and to watch theplauts 
from the time they first peep their tiny leaves 
above the ground until ready to use, aud then 
I always have the poultry to care for, which 1 
take great pleasure in, especially when I find 
lots of eggs. It has been very cold here this 
Winter, and I for one shall be glad to see 
Spriug again, when I can commence my gar¬ 
dening. I have sowed some tomato and 
pepper seeds in boxes, so as to give them a good 
start. With regards to all my Cousins, I re¬ 
main your loving niece, ELIZA CHAMP, 
Ont,, Can. _ _ 
Uncle Mark:— I have often read the letters 
from the Cousins, and thought I would like to 
join the Y. H. C. I am lo years old. This is 
a good farming country; corn, oats and vege¬ 
tables are mostly raised here, although some 
rye is gro ira, Oar farm contains 80 acres, be¬ 
sides four acres of woods. We keep 13 head 
of cattle, four horses and one yearling colt, 
which is mine, aud three pigs. All of these I 
had to feed, water and take care of in general 
alone for nearly a week, besides sawing and 
splitting the wood, my father beiug sick with 
neuralgia in the face. One of our horses 
which my father raised will be 28 years old 
next April. This is a good country for small 
fruits; apples did uot do very well this year. 
Most of the farmers around here are holding 
their oats until markets come up. My father 
has about a thousand bushels in his granary. 
The crops were very good this year, although 
corn and oats might have been better if a big 
storm of wind and raiu had not come, which 
blew down the corn and twisted the oats. 
Most of the grain here was cut with self-bind¬ 
ers. We planted the Rural Com, and it all 
grew; it is very good looking corn, but we 
have got some that turned out better; it is 
called the Hackberrv. We planted tbe tomato 
seed and set out 50 plants, all of which did 
well. Tbe peas we planted, and thought we 
would save them for seed, but the hens picked 
them as fast as they got ripe: the hens also 
scratched up nearly all of the Garden Treas¬ 
ures. I sowed the wheat and rye this Fall, 
and it is doing very well. The black oats we 
did not plant. We like your paper very much, 
and I always look for it every week. Well, I 
guess I have written enough, so with a good¬ 
bye to Uncle Murk and the Cousins, 1 remain 
your nephew, isaau van wik. 
Winnebago Co. 111. 
Dear Uncle Mark:—I guess by this time 
I am classed in the list of the silent Cousins. 
I have written two letters, but they were not 
printed. I received the flower seeds you so 
kindly sent me and had a great tnauy beauti¬ 
ful flowers. I will tell you what success I 
had with bees the postseason. I have a stand 
of hybrids; they are in a Langstroth frame 
hive. The seaaou was very poor here; toy 
bees swarmed once, but I lost the swarm, but 
they made BO pounds of comb boney, which I 
sold at 20 cents a pound. A great many 
stands this season did not make enough to 
winter. I have often wished to take part in 
the Discussion, but never have. We raised a 
good many Lima Beans lust year; we planted 
them in drills, aud I think we get more beans 
to the amount of ground in that way, though 
not so many to each plant. Of course I would 
wish to remain a member of the Club, if you 
please. Yours truly, 
Mills Co., Iowa, Herbert green 
The Kittens have a Frolic. 
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