564 
a 
AUG 24 
Radishes. —I sow a pinch of seed once a 
week out-of-doors in any open place, say, be¬ 
tween rows of beets, carrots, celery or any 
thing else, but I never give it a bit of ground 
apart for itself. It is only a four weeks’ 
crop from first to last. Better sow it in 
frames after the first of September. And 
about August 20th or September 1st, accord¬ 
ing to locality, sow some Scarlet Chinese for 
storing in winter. 
Turnips. —Rutabagas were sown at the end 
of July, after snap-beans. A succession crop 
of Purple-top White Globe was sown August 
6th after potatoes. I will sow white turnips 
again about August 20th, and again about Sep¬ 
tember 1st. These two sowings shall be large 
for winter. If our falls are mild and long the 
August 20th sowing will be too early; but if 
short and cold it will be in right time and the 
September one a little late. But this is a 
risk we always have to run. White turnips 
that are a little too old or large are often 
soggy inside; hence unfit for use. 
Globe Artichokes.— Old plants have fin¬ 
ished bearing. Cut over all old flower stems. 
Young plants are in full bearing. Cut off 
every head as soon as it is large enough for 
use, to insure a continuance of flower heads. 
Sow some seed now and winter the plumes in 
a cold-frame and they will be good bearing 
stock for next year. 
Spinach.— Sow a row of Viroflay once a 
fortnight till the middle of September; then 
put in the winter crop, I usually sow this 
late crop after musk-melons. 
Tomatoes never were finer than they are 
this year or freer from rot. Dwarf Champion 
was about the earliest good one we had, but it 
doesn’t bear enough. Which is the best of all 
tomatoes is hard to decide, but, looking over 
20 varieties now in fruit side by side, I must 
say there is nothing among them superior to 
Volunteer. At the same time, if anybody 
brought me the fruits of half a dozen varie¬ 
ties of the same type, Volunteer among them, 
I really couldn’t tell one from the other. 
Earliness among tomatoes bothers me a 
good deal; aud year after year’s experience 
knocks some of my pet theories and varieties 
higher than a kite. This year one variety 
may be ahead and next year it may be away 
behind. But I have a tomato which is earlier 
than any other I ever grew and it maintains 
this earliness year after year. It isn’t now, 
and never has been on the market. It is of 
Spanish origin, and it is an enormous cropper. 
But the color is pale red, the fruit uneven, 
and I find it has lost its foliage this year 
worse than any other sort. So I have come 
to the conclusion that my bonanza isn’t worth 
a cent. But I will keep it for forcing. 
The Dwarf Lima Beans. —Peter Hender¬ 
son hit me hard last week. I was his guest at 
dinner and we had seme of these Limas, aud 
I had to own up that as a tender, delicious 
bean they are unsurpassed. He knows of my 
partiality for tall Limas, but he assures me 
that while practical gardeners may share m 
my prejudice, the great majority of amateurs 
will not be bothered with poles, and many, 
now that they have got a dwarf form, will 
grow Limas, who before now wouldn’t grow 
them at all. Our own dwarfs are in capital 
bearing condition, and very prolific, and still 
they are blooming and podding. And while 
Kumerle’s Dwarf was a little shy at podding 
at first—no doubt on account of the incessant 
rainy weather—it is now bearing quite freely, 
also blooming and podding. 
Queens County, L. L 
Wjommt’s Wflirk. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
T HE formal manners of the last century 
seem both needless and absurd to us 
now, yet after all, an additional touch of cere¬ 
mony would be rather an advantage to us. 
Just notice the average school-girl when she 
meets a friend on the street. It is “ Hello 
Marne, where’r you goin’ ? ” followed by the 
parting salute“ So long.’’ Now, some stilted, 
formal address would seem very much out of 
place, but'not more so than these slangy, hoy- 
denish words. A girl cannot be too careful in 
her language, if she wishes to be regarded as 
a real gentlewoman. Rude and careless speech 
will infallibly lead to carelessness in manner. 
* * * 
A Girl should be taught that she is to greet 
her schoolmate.": as well as her elders with a 
little bow and a pleasant, “ How d’you do?”— 
such a salutation as, “Hello!” should never 
be permitted—except through the telephone. 
Nowadayswe 'see ajgirl 'entering\the parlor 
wich a carelessjiod^to .her^mother’s .callers. 
In the last century she would enter with a lit¬ 
tle courtesy to the inmates of the room, and 
then walking to the hostess or most prominent 
guest, would make another and a deeper cour¬ 
tesy. Very ceremonious it all seems, yet it 
was pretty and respectful. 
* * * * 
Reading the letters of a century agone one 
is more struck than ever with this ceremony. 
Mrs. Delany, writing to her mother when a 
middle-aged woman, began: “ Honored Mad¬ 
am,” and subscribed herself: “Your dutiful 
daughter and humble, obedient servant.” 
By the way, a most charming book to read 
aloud is the memoirs of this lady, “ Autobi¬ 
ography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany,” 
published by Roberts Bros. She was an Eng¬ 
lish woman of good birth, born in 1700. She 
died in 1788, after along, busy and^exomplary 
life. She was a woman of great culture, and 
during her long life made many friends of 
distinction. Her letters, chiefly addressed to 
a beloved sister, give all the current talk of 
the day—society, dress, and public affairs. 
One of her letters, addressed to a young rela¬ 
tive, contains such excellent advice that it is 
as fresh and seasonable now as it was in 1774. 
She says; “ Rise at seven, sacrifice to cleanli¬ 
ness in the first place; neatness of person and 
purity of mind are suitable companions; then, 
with awful attention, say your prayers, re¬ 
turn thanks for the blessings you have re¬ 
ceived, and pray for their continuance, and 
for grace to make the best use of them. 
.... I hope I need not recommend to 
you neatness and regularity in taking care 
of clothes, etc., keeping them in nice 
order and proper repair, not depending on its 
being done for you. Employ two hours 
every day in plain work, and making up your 
own things ; it is an accomplishment neces¬ 
sary for every gentlewoman, and when you 
are in circumstances to make it less necessary 
or convenient, you will be better able to know 
when it is well done for you. But this is not 
to exclude, at their proper season, works of 
ingenuity : if you have learned to draw, give 
one hour to that each day, but not so as to 
interfere with what is more necessary. Be¬ 
stow as little time on dress as possible, but 
let it always be neat, and suitable to your 
circumstances, (or position) and never extrav¬ 
agantly in the fashion , which is very vul¬ 
gar, and shows levity of mind. Be assured 
that the only way to be beloved and happy, 
(even in a parent’s house,) is to be humble, 
modest, attentive, and complying towards 
those who have taken you under their wing, 
adhering strictly to truth, and never see or 
say what is no business of yours.” 
Good sensible words now are these ; one 
can hardly wonder that Hannah More wrote 
of Mrs. Delany as of one who “ sheds a luster 
on our age.” 
OUT-DOOR STUDIES. 
A S April passes into May the number of 
flowers claiming attention increases 
like a sum in arithmetical progression. A 
whole paper might be devoted to the violets, 
white, yellow, blue and purple. Deep in the 
woods rarer, shyer flowers are to be found; 
the Showy Orchis throws up its delicate spike 
of mingled white and lavender, and the Moc¬ 
casin Flower gradually unfolds its rosy purple 
pouch. These two are representatives of the 
great orchid family, the most varied and 
curious class of plants we know. A majority 
of them are foreigners, but our own country 
gives us many species. The Showy Orchis— 
otherwise Orchis spectabilis—has two shiny, 
lily-like leaves; growing up from between 
them is a spike of oddly shaped flowers, the 
arched upper sepal of rosy-pink, with a tinge 
of purple; the lower part, or lip is white. 
“ Preacher-in-the-Pulpit ” is a common name 
for this flower, and it is more descriptive than 
popular names usually are, for the upper se¬ 
pal suggests the arched sounding-board of a 
gothic pulpit in miniature. 
The Moccasin Flower or Lady’s-slipper, is 
chiefly noticeaole for its odd, pouch-shaped 
lip. Our native species are not so noticeable 
for their resemblance to a slipper as some 
tropical varieties, which have given to the 
family its name of Cypripedium, or Venus’s 
Slipper. The variety most frequently met 
with m the Middle States is the Stemless 
Lady’s Slipper, which has a large pouch-like 
lip of rose-pink, sometimes tinged with pur¬ 
ple. The lip is the most conspicuous part of 
the flower—not an uncommon thing with 
orchids—so that the other sepals and petals 
are quite insignificant. Occasionally the va¬ 
riety we are now discussing is very pale 
in color, sometimes pure white, and very 
dainty It is. It has a peculiarly rich, heavy 
odor, suggestive of strange tropic spices, 
which is also possessed in a less marked de¬ 
gree by the Showy Orchis. Less common 
than the Stemlese Lady’s Slipper is a yellow 
variety, the Downy Lady’s Slipper, very 
charming with its clear golden color and vel¬ 
vety texture. 
Botanical names are difficult to many; yet 
it is impossible to identify wild flowers by 
their local titles. Take, for example, the 
honeysuckle. When 1 say honeysuckle, I 
mean the twining shrub known to botanists 
as Lonicera. In many places the same popu¬ 
lar name is applied to the wild azalea—pinx- 
ter-blossom, as it is called in New Jersey. 
Stranger still, the same name of honeysuckle 
is given to the wild columbine—aquilegia— 
which belongs to the Crow-foot family, aud is 
not even a poor relation of the real, simon- 
pure honeysuckle. This columbine, which 
you will find on rocky hillsides in May and 
June, is rather eccentric in shape; its five pet¬ 
als with spreading lips terminate in long 
spurs, which some little imagination might 
turn into eagle’s talons. The flower is scar¬ 
let, lined with yellow, and very showy. The 
compound leaves are very graceful, and alto¬ 
gether the columbine may be regarded as one 
of our handsomest wild flowers. Its English 
name is from some Latin derivative, meaning 
a aove; old botanists likened it to a flock of 
young doves feeding around a dish. Notwith¬ 
standing its beauty, this flower is dedicated 
by the old poets to folly and desertion, which 
Ophelia implies in “ Hamlet,'’ when she says: 
“There’s fennel for you, and columbines.’’ 
While another old dramatist takes it as the 
emblem of ingratitude. 
Growing with the columbine one usually 
finds the little mountain pink, which is a 
country cousin of our garden phlox. It 
creeps along the ground, its fresh green leaves 
suggesting a moss, whence its popular name 
of “ Moss Pink.” Its bright rose-pink flowers 
make a glowing carpet on hillsides quite early 
in the spring, and it often keeps on flowering 
until late in the autumn. It is not really a 
true pink; it belongs to another natural order; 
though Wordsworth’s description applies to 
our little phlox as well as to the true pink, or 
dianthus. 
“ The wild pink crowns the garden wail, 
And with the flowers are Intermingled stones. 
Sparry and bright rough scattering on the hills.” 
We have another example of confusion 
worse confounded in common names ; the 
little Houstonia coerulea, as we must call it to 
be explicit It is called “ Quaker Lady,” 
“ Quaker Bonnet,” “ Innocence,” “ Forget- 
me-not,” “ Venus’sPride,” “Dwarf-Pink,” 
“American Daisy” and “Bluet.” There, 
eight names to choose from ; four pretty, but 
meaningless, and four inaccurate. It is not a 
daisy, or a forget-me-not, or a pink, or a 
bluet. The last name, which Prof. Meehan 
has adopted, really belongs to the Corn flower. 
It is a little starry flower, faint blue or lilac, 
with a yellow center. It is extremely 
local in its habit ; you may find it growing 
profusely in one meadow, and fail to discover 
it anywhere else in the same county. Prop¬ 
erly, it grows in damp meadows, but I have 
found it in company with columbines on the 
rocks around Passaic Falls, N. J. It is really 
lovely, and there is little doubt that it would 
improve with cultivation. 
Do you know the Painted-Cup? It is not 
uncommon, according to Gray, although I 
have met with it but rarely. It is somewhat 
hairy, with incised leaves, bright green. Its 
peculiarity is that the leaves around the incon¬ 
spicuous flower are bright, vivid scarlet, giv¬ 
ing the effect of a flower. It looks, to use an 
unpoetic simile, as if the top of the plant had 
been dipped into a pot of red dye. It is such 
a noticeable oddity that it will be recognized 
by this brief description. It is found flower¬ 
ing in low, sandy ground, from June to Au¬ 
gust. It is dedicated to Castillejo, a Spanish 
botanist, and has received the name Castilleia 
cocciaea. It is a member of the Great Fig- 
wort family, to which our every-day mullein 
belongs. 
Another member of the same family is the 
common Toad flax, or Butter-and-Eggs. We 
will call it Toad-flax, however, for the second 
name is also given in England to one of the 
daffodils. Our plant has a dense raceme of 
yellow flowers, with a queer resemblauce to 
the mouth of a fairy-book dragon. It throws 
up a spike one to three feet high, and is very 
showy, but a most pernicious weed. It would 
not be a weed if we confined it toour gardens; 
but it requires that definition, because it is 
emphatically, a plant out of place; a different 
definition from that given by a precocious 
little girl—a weed is a plant you don’t have to 
pay for. cottage maid. 
FEEDING THE BABY. 
T HE poor little babies suffer enough this 
warm weather ; even when fed and 
treated aright, any carelessness or neglect 
may be really fatal to them. Among the 
many excellent suggestions given by the New 
York Board of Health is a series on the care 
of infants in hot weather, which needs no 
apology for its reproduction. It is as follows: 
I.—NURSING OF INFANTS. 
“Over-feeding does more harm than any¬ 
thing else; nurse an infant a month or two 
old every two or three hours. 
Nurse an infant of six months and over five 
times in 24 hours, and no more. 
If an infant is thirsty, give it pure water or 
barley-water, no sugar. 
ii .—feeding of infants. 
Boil a teaspoonful of powdered barley 
(ground in coffee grinder) and half a pint of 
water, with a little salt, tor 15 minutes; 
strain; then mix it with half as much boiled 
milk; add a lump of white sugar the size of a 
walnut and give it luke-warm from a nursing 
bottle. Keep bottle and mouth-piece in a 
bowl of water when not in use, to which a lit¬ 
tle soda may be added. 
For infants five or six months old, give half 
barley-water and half boiled milk, with salt 
and a lump of sugar. 
For older infants, give more milk than bar¬ 
ley-water. 
For infants very costive, give oatmeal in¬ 
stead of barley. Cook and strain as before. 
When your breast-milk is only half enough, 
change off between breast-milk and this pre¬ 
pared food. 
In hot weather if blue litmus paper, applied 
to the food, turns red the food is too acid, and 
you must make a fresh mess or add a small 
pinch of baking-soda. 
Infants of six months may have beef-tea or 
beef-soup once a day, by itself or mixed with 
other food, and when ten or twelve months old 
a crust of bread and a piece of rare beef 
to suck. 
No child under two years ought to eat at 
your table. 
Give no candies, in fact nothing that is not 
contained in these rules, without a doctor’s 
orders. 
III.—summer complaint. 
It comes from over-feeding, and hot and 
foul air. Keep doors and windows open. 
Wash your well children with cool water 
twice a day or oftener in the hot season. 
Never neglect looseness of the bowels in 
an infant; consult the family or dispensary 
physician at once, and he will give you rules 
about wbat it should take and how it should 
be nursed. Keep your rooms as cool as pos¬ 
sible, have them well ventilated, and do not 
allow any bad smell to come from sinks, 
privies, garbage-boxes, or gutters about the 
house where you live. 
Where an infant is cross and irritable in 
the hot weather, a trip on the water will do 
it a great deal of good (ferryboat or steam¬ 
boat), and may prevent cholera-infantum.” 
PATTY GARTON. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
T HE following item is credited to Beecher, 
Lowell aud others. It is too good to be 
lost. No man is born into the world whose 
work is not born with him. There f re always 
work and tools to work withal, for those who 
will. 
Talmage tells this beautiful anecdote; One 
day a man was taking me from the depot to 
a village. He was very rough and coarse, and 
blasphemous; but after a while he began to 
talk of his little son whom he had lost. “ O, 
sir,” he said, “ that boy was different from 
the rest of us. He never used any bad lan¬ 
guage; no, sir, I never heard him use a bad 
word in my life. He used to say his prayers, 
and we laughed at him, but he would keep on 
saying his prayers, and I often thought: ‘I 
can’t keep that child,’ and I said to my wife; 
‘Mother, we can’t keep that child.’ But, sir, 
the day he was drowned, and they brought 
him in and laid him down on the carpet, so 
white and so beautiful, my heart broke, sir. 
1 knew' we couldn’t keep him.”. 
Speaking of unworthy members of our 
church he said: “ You will find worm-eaten 
leaves in Fontainebleau, and insects that sting 
in the fairy groves of the Champs-Elysees. 
You do not tear down and destroy the whole 
garden because there are a few specimens of 
gnarled fruit. I admit there are men and wom¬ 
en in the church who ought not to be there; 
|)U$rrUaufoui8i gnHcrtteittfl. 
’When Baby was slcx. we gave her Cas-... vt 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castor!*. 
When she became Miss she clung to Castorls. 
■* r ben she had Children she yave them 
