as easily as he uses the bough. Such an ar¬ 
rangement would bring untold comfort to 
this hot climate. [Over a dozen years ago we 
saw such a contrivance in a planter’s house 
near Victoria, Texas, driven by a cheap or 
home-made little wind-mill on the roof. 
There is generally wind enough in the hottest 
day to do such light work—and the breeze 
created is a blessing in the sweltering nights 
of the South— Eds.] There are many little 
things about house-work that could be greatly 
aided by some sort of cheap motive power. 
Inventors seem to have given their great 
attention to the work of perfecting the 
stronger powers. If there could be made a 
portable boiler and power that could be fitted 
upon the common stove or range, ami con¬ 
nected with light machinery about the house, 
a great deal of disagreeable house-work could 
be lightened. subscriber. 
Fluvanna Co., Va. 
I find that many so-called temperance 
men raise barley and sell it to be made into 
beer. I can't see what business they have to 
find fault with a beer seller. They should 
either keep quiet on the temperance question or 
have their barley ground into cattle feed. It 
does not look right for a man to be continually 
cursing a business to which he owes his sup¬ 
port. G. w. s. 
Chester Co., Pa. 
wheels in hot oil. Now is this really a bene¬ 
fit or is it all experiment? I would like to 
have farmers give, in their experience on this 
point. How does the oil affect the wood, and 
what is gained by the operation? H. G. 
Orange Co., N. Y. 
A box without any bottom in it, a foot 
square and eight inches deep, with a string 
stretched from one side to the other, with 
rags tied to the string and left to flutter in the 
wind, placed over the melon hill, I find to be 
protection against the meanest bug (yellow- 
striped) I ever had to contend with. A quar¬ 
ter of a teaspoon fill of Paris-green in three 
gallons of water, sprinkled on the vines, will 
kill the bugs, and if the sun comes out hot just 
after the sprinkling, it will kill the vines also; 
but if it remains cloudy these will not be hurt. 
Ido not recommend it: yet 1 used to employ 
it, but if I hadn't boxes, I would take the risk, 
it is such a pleasure to kill the bugs. If they 
are not destroyed or kept away, they will kill 
the vines. I have many inquiries regarding 
my hay furnace. Some few of the letters 
contain a stamp for answer. I wish the friends 
would remember that I am not a Congress¬ 
man, and have no franking privilege. 
Alexandria, Dakota. t. n. youngman 
I am at a loss to know whether it is better to 
pick Sharpless & Bidwell when the top is 
green , or wait until the tip is rotten. 
N. HALLOCK. 
How can it be altered? It is not hard for a 
man’s disposition to be changed. A word does 
it sometimes, a bright thought breaking in 
upon the mind; a reflection, as it were, from 
a mirror, which shows the man his fault; but 
it must come from without; it cannot spring 
from within. No man was ever converted 
from the error of his ways by a slow process 
of self-reasoning. But he has !>een brought 
up “all standing,” as it is said, by a sudden 
thought or circumstauce. Now, let this 
farmer who feels that he is living on the dark 
side of his occupation, begin to think of the 
purpose of every act and work of his; to 
study the principles of his work ; ask 
himself why this is and how that is. When he 
sees the seed he has sown germinating and 
sending up its spire and down its radicle; or 
the trees and plants, only u few days ago dead 
and lifeless, now breaking out into leaf and 
bloom; or the insects which buzz and seem to 
enjoy themselves about him; or how all living 
tilings appear to live in the light and sunshine, 
let him ask how it is that all nature is so 
beautiful, so well ordered, so amenable to the 
strictest law and order, and so happy, if it is 
not that some most beneficent wisdom has 
made everything work together for man’s 
happiness, ami that if a man is not happy it is 
his own fault, and if he will only take the 
right way of doing it, he may clear away the 
clouds from his life auil be as happy as a man 
can be, if he will only not be a misfit, but fit 
himself completely to his circumstances and 
work. 
CORESPONDENTS’ VIEWS. 
I think the lime-dust treatment the best of 
all cures for gapes in chickens. It is cheap, 
simple and effective, I put a whole brood of 
chickens in a peck measure with a bag over 
the top. A barrel parti} - filled with air-slaked 
lime, as dry as powder, was turned on its 
side and the lime was stirred with a stick un¬ 
til the whole barrel was filled with lime float¬ 
ing in the air. The chickens were put in this, 
with the bag over the mouth of the barrel. 
They were put into the dust three times, not 
more than a minute each time. They should 
be kept in the measure all the time. We let 
one brood stay in too long and lost five out of 
seven. The wind-pipes of the dead chickens 
were found more than half filled with gape 
worms, which made it more difficult for them 
to breathe. My little son, seven years old, 
treats his chickens in this way successfully. 
The lime can lie slaked with water and then 
allowed to dry so as to powder. A lot of lime 
thus prepared will last for years for this pur¬ 
pose. F. d. c. 
Saratoga Co., N. Y. 
I want to know what others think about 
rye as a green manure. With me it has not 
been a success by any means. I tried sowiug 
it in alternate strips across a 40-acre field that 
was to lie planted to corn. The previous crop 
was oats. When the rye was ready to head, 
the whole field was plowed and planted to 
corn, and all parts were treated just alike. 
The strips that bad no rye on them yielded 
three bushels more per acre than the rye- 
ground. In this instance, then, the rye as a 
fertilizer proved a loss of one plowing, the 
seed aud seeding, and three bushels of corn 
per acre. Besides this, the ground was in a 
worse condition — more grass aud weeds. 
Early plowing, boforo the weed seeds were 
ripe, sowing among the corn or on fallow 
might have produced a differeut result. Peo¬ 
ple say that a crop of rye contains so much 
plaut food. 1 would like to kuow from farm¬ 
ers what soil, seasons, conditions and handling 
are necessary to make this plant food avail¬ 
able. M. B. 
Kankakee Co., Ill, 
It is very hot here now, and we have flies 
about us by the million. Screen doors aud 
window frames are slowly coming into use, 
but most of the Southern people have not 
thought of keeping Hies out of the house. 
They seem to prefer to let them come iu and 
then to drive them out again with green 
boughs. Nothing amuses the Northern v isitor 
more than ttie little negro who stands at the 
head of t he table brushing the flies away from 
the food. Ho has a loug green bough in his 
hand, which he skillfully flourishes about the 
table. In Richmond, many of thu restaurants 
have titkxl up large fans which are run by 
water power furnished by the city. These 
fans are of light wood, about throe feet long, 
iu the shape of a double wing. They make 
about eight revolutions per second, and 
create such a breeze that all flics are driven 
out, while the temperature of the room is 
greatly reduced, 1 believe it would pay well 
for the planters iu this section to put up some 
of these fans iu their houses. Where labor is 
as cheap as it is here, the motive power could 
be easily supplied. A crank could Ik* fixed 
on the outside, aud the boy who now brushes 
flies away from the table could turn it about 
Every hog raiser, East or West, ought to 
have a field of clover. I don’t see how hogs 
can be raised with any profit without it. There 
is nothing that, suits hogs so well as a summer 
feed, and there is nothing that so cheaply aud 
easily improves the soil. Hogs should be fed 
some grain while at pasture. I find that a 
hungry hog makes too good use of his legs. He 
becomes rangy aud leggy. When he has plen¬ 
ty to eat and finds he does not have to roam 
£iclt> Crops. 
THE RURAL’S WHEAT-AND-RYE HY¬ 
BRIDS. 
PROFESSOR W. TRELEASE. 
About two months since the editor of the 
Rural was kind enough to send me one of 
its flowering glume, and some more delicate 
inner scales that are of no particular int eres 
in this connection. The technical differences 
between the genera in question may be stated 
as follows:— 
“Secale.”—Empty glumes, narrowly linear, 
flattened, and keeled on the back. Spikelets 
two-flowered, the flowering glumes keeled; 
five-nerved, their nerves all running into a 
long awn or beard. 
"Triticum.”—Empty glumes broader, more 
rounded on the back, several-nerved. Spike- 
lets two to five-flowered, the flowering glumes 
rounded on the back or keeled only toward the 
top; five to nine-nerved, only the middle nerve 
running into the awn when the glumes are 
bearded, the lateral ones shorter or prolonged 
into a pair of teeth on the sides of the awn. 
These characters are shown at Fig. 276: A, 
a single spikelet of rye; C, aspikelet of wheat; 
and B, a spikelet of the Rural specimen sent 
me: all enlarged one half. 
I think that a person picking up a single 
spikelet of this plant, or looking over the illus¬ 
trations in the Rural for Aug. 30,1884, would 
pronounce it to be wheat. A glance at the 
illustrations given here shows that the speci¬ 
men submitted to me has the generic charac¬ 
ters of wheat iu every respect and the foliage 
of these seedlings is said (Rural, Aug. 30. 
1884,) to have been colored like that of wheat- 
So far as I can see, there are but two reasons 
for asserting that they represent hybrids; 1, 
the great variability of their offspring; 2, 
the fact that the culm is so ft-hairy below the 
head, as in rye. while the rachis between the 
spikelets Is similary hairy. It is well known 
that the offspring of fertile hybrids are prone 
to considerable variability, but this is also 
called out iu some cases by simply cross-fertil¬ 
izing different varieties of the same species. 
Granting, therefore, that the supposed hybrids 
may be the result of accidental crossing by 
the pollen of another variety of wheat—and 
the pollen of these wind-pollenated plants is so 
easily blown about and so insidious that this 
is no reflection on the care of the experiment¬ 
er—this variability might be so explained. 
Just such a result from intentional crossing is 
reported in the Rural for Oct. 81, 1885, p. 
724. The hairiness of the stem below the head 
of flowers is the only real evidence of hybrid¬ 
izing that I flud. aud this is not usually re¬ 
garded os a generic character, but only as one 
peculiar to the species of rye. However, it is 
sufficiently pronounced to satisfy me, in the 
absence of evidence that it is also found on 
certain varieties of wheat, that the Rural ex¬ 
periments have resulted in a partially fertile 
hybrid, that is wheat to all iutents and pur¬ 
poses. but with the one evideut character of 
rye that 1 have named, and, possibly, addition¬ 
al hardiness or other obscure characters. 
Since writing the foregoing fines, I have 
been favored with a line suite of specimens 
(3U in number) representing the principal 
forms that the offspring of the Rural hybrids 
present this year. As has been said of them 
before, these are extremely unlike, aud the 
privilege of examining them has been eagerly 
accepted. After going over them all care¬ 
fully, however, I find no additional evidence 
of hybridization. About half of the specimens 
have the culm hairless below the head. I 
doubt if a botanist uot familiar with their 
history would suspect these being auything 
but wheat. But It is interesting to observe 
that in these, notwithstanding their great 
variability, there is uo indication of rough 
hairy spikelets such as are characteristic of 
some varieties of wheat: so that this variability 
is within the type limits—widely understood— 
of the mother plaut. The others present the 
same evidence of hybridity as the original 
specimen, viz., a downy culm. 
St. Louis, Mo. 
[Iu the collection sent to Dr. Trelease we 
were unable to add specimens, of the three- 
quarters rye plants from last year’s cross, 
These will be illustrated later.— Eds.] 
■ -‘■'V ' -V?.. T . K> 
BLACK RUSSIAN FOWLS. Fig. 278. 
about for bis food, he will devote himself en¬ 
tirely to the business of laying on flesh in the 
most desirable parts of his hotly. This is, as I 
understand it, the proper business of a hog. 
Montgomery Co.,Va. j. m. e. 
Every farmer should have a patch of rasp¬ 
berries. This fruit will give bettor satisfac¬ 
tion than any other. It will pay to transplant 
wild black raspberries where others cannot be 
obtained. 1 tried this 30 years ago with good 
success. I went through the distant, fields 
and dug up some healthy brims. These I 
planted in September, iu a rich sod ground on 
the west side of a stone wall. I left the briars 
from three to four feet iu length and did not 
remove the buds. They were watered when 
first set out until rain came. They bore a good 
crop the uextyear, and for 15 years thereafter. 
It paid me well as I had my berries nearat hand 
and did uot have to tramp a loug distance 
after them. Farmers, as a rule, have to de¬ 
pend upou the woods anti fields for their fruit, 
from strawberries to apples. With a little 
work in the Fall, they could save much of the 
tramping after berrios, by bringing the plants 
nearer home. Along old walls and fences, out 
of the reach of the cattle, the plants will find 
u climbing place so much like their old home 
in the woods that they will be content. 1 
would sav, buy the cultivated plants if you 
can, aud give them good care, but at any rate 
save yourself time and tramping by bringing 
the wild plants uearer home. h. e. s. 
Waterloo, N. Y. 
I notice most of the papers are advocating 
the soaking of the rims and felloes of w r agou 
the original heads (sterile) of his seedlings ob¬ 
tained from Landreth (Armstrong) Wheat, 
castrated aud polleuated with rye at the Rural 
Grouuds iu 1883. I have been interested in 
his experiments as reported at intervals in the 
Rural, aud in the opiuions of the correspon¬ 
dents to whom specimens have been submit¬ 
ted; so that it was a pleasure to examine the 
specimen rent me. and to review what has 
been published concerning this cross. Having 
done this, I have thought that some of the 
Rural readers might lie interested in a state¬ 
ment of the botanical features of the parent 
plants aud of these seedlings, as these have 
not been clearly brought out iu any article 
that l have seen. 
Mr. Bent ham, who died not long since in 
England, is generally conceded to have been 
foremost among students of the Graminea*, 
and his revision of the group for the Genera 
Plantarum is universally followed. In this 
work “Secale” (rye) is placed between “Agro- 
pyrum” (which iueludes our common Quack 
Grass, and “Triticum” [wheat). As Quack 
Grass has commonly been placed in the geuus 
Triticum, it is self-evident that the relation¬ 
ship of wheat to rye is extremely close, so that 
there is no a priori reason why hybrids should 
not be obtained by proper manipulation; yet 
I don't know that this result has been claimed 
by others than the Rural Editor. 
The essential difference between Secale aud 
Triticum lies iu the structure of the spikelets 
(breasts) of the head. As iu most grasses, each 
of these has at its base a pair of empty glumes 
(G iu the cut, Fig. 276), forming part of the 
chaff; above these are the flowers, each with 
