ened together at the cornel's by means of hard¬ 
wood pieces, as shown. The three legs are 
three feet nine inches long, fastened on by 
means of strap hinges, so that it will adapt it¬ 
self to bags of different length by giving a 
a greater or less spread to the legs. The hooks 
are formed of wrought iron nails driven into 
the corners and turned. Nails driven into the 
legs and sharpened hold the implement from 
slipping. 
MODERN HORTICULTURAL NOMEN- 
. CLATURE. 
T. T. LYON. 
With the rejuvenation of horticulture with¬ 
in the past 30 or 40 years, important changes 
have occurred in modes of thought and practice, 
to a few only of which do I propose to invite 
attention. Then, the orchardist, perchance, 
would have no alternative but to plant the 
seeds, grow them up to trees, and thus provide 
for the planting of his orchards. Nurseries 
aud nurserymen’s catalogues were decided 
rarities. “Agents” and "tree peddlers” and 
especially the venders of blue lilies and roses, 
tree strawberries, curculio-proof plums, iron¬ 
clad peaches, Russian apples and mulberries, 
and all that tribe, were all unknown, as were 
the great mass of of our present horticultural 
literature, with the consequent necessity to 
write and re-write, print and .reprint, study 
aud restudy the catalogues aud lists of to-day. 
Serious as the mere fact of prolixity has now 
become, however, it ceases to be of importance 
when compared to the novelty mania, with its 
burdensome tax upon the time, as well as the 
purse, not only of nurserymen, but of the 
general public as well. It can no longer be 
said that misleading names are the outcome 
of innocent- self-deception, or that they are 
mainly harmless. The new rose, Her Majesty, 
may, for ought we know to the contrary, be 
superior to any and everything in its way that 
has preceded it; but who dare deny that so 
pretentious a name was not chosen as an aid 
to its introduction and sale; or that quite as 
much use is not being made of the name as of 
its alleged merits in the way of advertising. 
The same to-day, as the rule, may with great 
apparent reason as well as probability, be 
charged as the motive for the selection of such 
titles as General. President. King. Emperor, 
Queen, etc., etc., while Beauty, Favorite. Pro¬ 
lific, and a host of other prefixes and suffixes 
subserve the same object—an unwillingness K> 
wait till the variety shall win a character for 
itself, and a purpose to impose a character 
upon it which, too late to serve the purchaser, 
may, and as the rule, surely will prove spuri¬ 
ous or at the least misleading. 
To illustrate: I can see no good reason why 
all should not tacitly yield to the wish of the 
owners, and di'op the name Comet as applied 
to the Lawson Pear, save that, being more or 
less sensational, it may be used to withdraw 
attention from its actual worthlessness, and 
thus promote the sale of trees. 
The introducer of Meedi^ Prolific Quince 
by the use of the epithet "Prolific” becomes 
liable to the suspicion of a purpose to urge its 
sale upon the assurance of su]»orior product¬ 
iveness—a claim which will quite possibly 
entrap the ignorant; although those better in¬ 
formed will usually understand (as has been 
very properly said, recently, by J. J. Thomas) 
that prolificacy is quite as likely to prove a 
fault as otherwise. To the public it is sure to 
be only Meech. 
I know nothing of the Golden Queen 
Raspberry, now widely aud temptingly ad¬ 
vertised; but the mere selection of such a sen¬ 
sational name, in defiance of the tendencies of 
the day, begets the suspicion that it was 
chosen to supply a factitious basis, on which 
an advertising reputation might be made up— 
a motive which seems to have heretofore in¬ 
duced the selection of such names as Legal 
Tender, Prince of Berries, Pride of the Hud¬ 
son and numerous other similar' ones. 
South Haven, Mich. 
SHORT PITHY PARAGRAPHS. 
Poultry and Sheep need sulphur, not 
only to prevent disease, but to make wool, 
eggs and feathers. For poultry and hogs, add 
charcoal. Keep your poultry houses well 
littered with sawdust. Occasionally dust sul¬ 
phur and ashes over the perches to prevent 
vermin atrd scaly legs. Keep a box of ashes 
in one comer. 
few weeks before calving to give strength to 
expel the afterbirth. If fat, put them on dry 
feed 10 days before calving to prevent milk 
fever. For milk fever, give spirits of niter 
and quinine in small and frequent doses. Keep 
the patient well covered with blankets to pre¬ 
vent chills and congestion. I hu.ve cured the 
worst form of foot-rot in sheep in a week’s 
time by driving them twice a day through a 
trough filled with lime, blue vitriol and 
water, mixed to a thin paste. Water 
must be added as it dries out. For scab, 
tobacco dip is safest; arsenic and carbolic 
acid are effectual, but dangerous. For dis¬ 
temper in horses, a teaspoonful of cam¬ 
phor gum twice a day, corn fodder, bran mash 
and blankets. For spavin use iodine, quick¬ 
silver and corrosive sublimate, equal parts, 
mixed with lard. Remove the hair, rub in 
the ointment for four consecutive days in 
eight or ten days, and the spavin will disap¬ 
pear. For strains and lameness keep on wet 
bandages. For ringbone, sweet oil, four 
ounces, turpentine, two ounces, oil of stone 
one ounce. Apply three times a day; fasten 
a bar of lead just above the enlargement. 
For scratches, wash with soap suds; add 30 
drops of carbolic acid to a pail of suds. For 
sweeny, rub well with a bacon rind. For 
hots or colic, give sweet milk to which has 
been added a shovelful of wood ashes; after 
this has settled pour the milk off. If for bots, 
odd one pint of molasses. Repeat the dose if 
relief does not speedily follow—a safe and effi¬ 
cient remedy, For saddle or collar sores, 
brush on some white lead paint. To prevent 
sore shoulders, wash well with cold water at 
night; keep the collars cleaned and well oiled. 
For poll evil or fistula, wash pure potash into 
the sores—sure cure. For hoof-bound, keep 
the hoof wet with strong brine; have the shoe 
made so as to expand the foot Most black¬ 
smiths shape the shoe so as to make the hoof 
contract or crowd inwards at every step,hence 
corns and hoof-bound. Buy stock os a rule, 
when everybody wants to sell, and sell when 
everybody wants to buy. 
[R. N. Y.—Some of the modes of treatment 
recommended above for several of the ail¬ 
ments mentioned, differ from those prescribed 
by the most skillful and successful veterina¬ 
rians. The methods of the latter have in 
every case been given from time to time in the 
Rural during the past year, and repeatedly 
in previous years, so that there is really no 
necessity for repeating them here. We do 
not think it right to exclude from a farmers’ 
paper all mention of practices and beliefs 
common among a large number of farmers, 
simply because they do not coincide with what 
we think best ourselves. A word of caution, 
however, is not out of place, where the health 
or life of a prized animal may be affected.]— 
To Preserve Fence Posts, dig a pit in the 
ground, that will hold 50, 100 or more posts of 
any size you want; break up freshly burned 
unslaked lime, put a layer on the bottom 
of the pit, lay in your posts until f ull - 
then pour on water to slake the lime; add 
two pounds of sulphuric acid to a pail of 
water; cover up quickly with boards and then 
with dirt; tramp down to keep in all the heat 
and steam; let them lie one week before open¬ 
ing. I have known elm posts thus treated to 
be good and sound after IS years. Another 
way, with a cloth swab tied on a stick, apply 
sulphuric acid to the parts of the posts that 
will be a foot above and below the ground. 
Afterwards give a coat of linseed oil, or oil 
and resin, hot or coal tar. Another way, ap¬ 
ply common coal oil to the entire post after 
swabbing it with the acid, as above. This is 
cheap aud lasting. To make a cheap and 
stroug post-and-rail fence, take number eight 
or nine wire; tie it around the post two feet 
from the ground: bring it up and make a loop 
for the ends of two rails to slip in: then tie 
around the post again, make another loop for 
the top rails; drive staples to the wire at the 
Ivick side of the posts. This will make a 
cheap, strong fence to turn horses and cattle 
too; or three barbed wires can be added at 
the bottom to turn small stock. In making 
all wire fence, have the brace come about the 
midtile of the end post, so that the post can 
spring as the wire contracts; if put at the top 
of the post it will draw out and loosen the 
whole feuee. 
To Keep Cider Sweet for years, add 
one ounce of salicycie acid to 40 gallons of 
sweet cider; dissolve the acid in hot water in 
u crock (don’t use iron); let it stand on the 
stove two hours, or until dissolved. The 
acid is good for rheumatism and dyspepsia, 
and is kept by all druggists. 
Morrow Co., Ohio. c. w. carpenter. 
[Salicylic acid is not now used as a food pre¬ 
servative nearly so commonly as it was a few 
years ago, as it is thought to be injurious to 
the stomach.—E ds.] 
jority the exact place of w ater in cultivation 
is yet in a great measure unknown. They un¬ 
derstand that wet ground is unfavorable, but 
the want of knowing why it is unfavorable 
leads to innumerable errors in practice, aud is 
the cause of an nuuual loss to the country as 
compared with which the fearful figures of 
losses by insects, as furnished by entomolo¬ 
gists, pale into insignificance, Nature swims 
in abundance, insects take a few buckets from 
the pool, keeping it from an overflow, but 
water where it is not wanted, often takes the 
whole, leaving us “high anil dry,” For in¬ 
stance: every farmer knows that Winters in 
which his grain fiolds are covered by snow the 
whole season are more favorable to abundant 
harvests than seasons when there is little 
snow. Some attribute this to shelter from 
frost, some to protection from sun, others to 
some fertilizing property in the snow itself. 
Each or all may have some beneficial influ¬ 
ence, but the chief good comes from the 
counteraction of too much water in the soil. 
Plants draw out in wet ground by the action 
of the frost, the weight of the snow presses it 
down as the molting water from the surface 
thaws the ground beneath. But ‘'drawing 
out” is in proportion to the water in the soil. 
Earth in itself, does not freeze; it is only the 
water that is in it that freezes. When a clod 
freezes dry it falls to powder. The expansion 
of earth by the freezing of the water that is in 
it, is upwards, and the plants are lifted up by 
this expansion. WheQ the thaw comes, the 
liquid mush, being heavier than the root or 
plant, goes first into the space that the root 
ought to fall into, and hence the latter is loft to 
dry or perishes in the sunlight and air. In dry 
ground, where there is little water to freeze, 
plan fa are not thrown out. On a sand-hill 
no such thing as thawing out can occur. 
Thus wo sec that the light crops of grain that 
follow Winters with little snow, are traceable 
to the drawing out aud total loss of some 
plants, or the partial drawing out and propor- 
tiouate injury to the plants that are left, and 
which give only a proportion of a full crop. 
In the Old World, where farming is expected 
to be carried on by the same person on the 
same tract for years, this fact has been recog¬ 
nized, aud a system of under-draining has 
beeu resorted to. Under-draining has been 
practiced in laud comparatively dry, aud with 
profitable results. Crops double, and even 
treble the size, have been obtained on laud af¬ 
ter uuder-drainiug. In our country, where an 
owner seldom knows how long he may hold 
grouud before ho is tempted to sell or vacate, 
the first expense of under-draining can rarely 
be thought of. Not often would he get back 
the first cost, with interest, under several years. 
But very much oftener than at present, he 
might surface-drain by plowing into ridges, 
or making open furrows through the flats. He 
would do so much oftener thau now. if he did 
not forget that surplus water in the soil is at 
the bottom of most of his losses by short crops. 
Aside from this, it is not well understood 
that water is of no value as food for plants. 
Its chief use to vegetation is to keep the parts 
cool—to keep a plant from drying up. Heat 
is evolved by the processes of life. Transpir¬ 
ation carries off the surface heat, just as per¬ 
spiration keejw a man’s body cool. A live 
tree trunk in summertime will lie found quite 
cool, while a dead trunk alongside will be 
warm or even hot, and iu Winter, when a 
thin snow on yucca, or other living leaves, will 
molt, on dead leaves, or dead wood, that have 
no living heat, it will stay till the sun or an 
advance in the temperature drives it away. 
Water is necessary therefore only as it can 
pass tissues, and transpire through the sur¬ 
faces. It is not necessary thut water absolute¬ 
ly iu its pure liquid state should be iu the soil 
for the plant to get all it needs. Tonsof water, 
as we know water, are taken from earth from 
which we could not extract one drop by press¬ 
ure—and we find by experience that the less 
of what we call water in its popular sense 
we have in the soil, the better for the health 
of the plant. This comes about from the food 
of plants being chiefly of a mineral character, 
and the necessity of oxygen in properly pre¬ 
paring food for the plant. Though actually in 
water, roots have to employ oxygon in prepar¬ 
ing food. Water is capable of taking up a 
small portion of oxygen; when it has taken this 
small portion, it will take no more; when all 
the water is relieved of its oxygen the plant 
will die unless the water has the chance of 
absorbing mure from the atmosphere in pro¬ 
portion to that used by the plant. A hyacinth 
could not live in a hyacinth glass ouly that 
the water absorbs from the atmosphere the 
oxygon it loses by root consumption. This 
has been proved by actual experiment, “If 
the water iu which the roots of a plant are 
immersed be contained in a closed bottle only 
pai'tiolly filled with the water, while the re¬ 
mainder is occupied by atmospheric air, the 
oxygon iu this air will slowly diminish, being 
absorbed by the roots through the medium of 
water, the roots extracting it from the water 
and the water absorbing it from the air. If 
carbonic acid, nitrogen or hydrogen, is sub¬ 
stituted for the atmospheric air iu the bottle, 
the plant drodps and dies in a few days.” 
(Johnston’s Lectures). 
We see from all this that, while it is impor¬ 
tant that there should be moisture in the soil 
iu order that there should be a circulation 
of the plant juices, it is quite as important, if 
not more so, that there should ho always a sup¬ 
ply of oxygen about the roots. They cannot get 
much when water surrounds them, and then 
only at second-hand. The soil is, therefore, 
in the best condition for plant life when it has 
no water in its popular sense—it should rather 
be in a gaseous titan an aqueous state. 
The “moral” of all this is. as the story books 
would say, that water serves two purposes in 
plant culture: first, ifcgives that moisfittm to the, 
earth by which the plant can get of the liquid 
sufficient to supply the waste of transpiration, 
aud maintain au even temperature, and, 
secondly iwhat is of far more importance), it 
drives out of the soil the waste air—tho air 
that has been deprived of its oxygen, and, 
when tho water itself sinks away by its own 
weight, a new supply of fresh air takes the 
place of that which the water dislodged. 
Is it not strange how long it takes the culti¬ 
vator to apply the facts which the scientific 
investigator makes so plain before him? Go 
where yon will in greenhouses, you may see 
the water-logged pot that never dries, and the 
sickly plant, the grower never for a moment 
supposing that it is dying from root-suffoeation, 
and we may go into the large establishment 
of tho intelligent cut-flower grower, and find 
his benches of roses, bouvardias and carnations 
unprovided with any drainage; but fortun¬ 
ately they are kept in fair health by the slower 
process of moisture evaporating from the 
great flat surface, instead of the more rapid 
passage which good drainage affords. They 
seem to prefer to learn by horny-handed, 
thiejv-hoaded experience, costing no end of 
brains aud thousands of dollars in money. 
After years of tussling with ten inches or a 
foot of soil iu a bench, they found six inches 
or less in a bench better. No one could explain 
why? The reply is, "Well, we find it better!” 
They stiU kept to their solid board bottoms, 
that admitted of no drainage. Now they have 
found that slatted bottoms are better than the 
solid boards, and still no one knows any more 
than that it is better “because it is.” 
What an immense advance there will be in 
profitable culture wheu it comes to be under¬ 
stood everywhere that the oxygen in the air is 
essential to the roots of plants, and that the 
rapid drying out of the soil, so long as it re¬ 
tains some moisture, is the best way to re-oxy- 
genate the earth. 
form Qrcommu). 
CRUSHING BONE. 
Mr. Charles E. BuRXAr 'uses' the "device 
shown at Fig. 226 for crush mg ^bones for his 
Fig 336. 
poultry. It consists of a strong sugar barrel 
with three staves cut off one-third the distance 
from the top. It is then partly filled with 
small stones packed solid. At tho top of these 
is placed a large fiat stone fitted tightly to the 
barrel, with the top coming up even with the 
bottom of the place cut out. Upon this flat 
stone bones cau be crushed, the sides of the 
barrel catching the fragments, thus saving 
much that would otherwise be lost. 
ORAIN BAH HOLDER. 
At Fig 337 we show another graiu bag hol¬ 
der, different from the one illustrated last 
week.) IThis onefis'used.by Mr. Luther 4 Shute. 
It is made of three pieces of half-inch bass¬ 
wood boards. Upper edge 33 inches loug'and 
lower edge nine inches, These nieces are fast¬ 
As Treatment ok Diseases: for bloat or 
hovcu iu cattle, a cloth wet with stroug brine 
laid across the small of the back will give re¬ 
lief, If cows are poor and weak, feed corn a 
PITHS FROM SUBSCRIBERS. 
A. C. Carpenter, of Minnesota, says that 
some contend that any journal is worth its 
