14r8 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
NUMERICAL ENIGMA. 
I am composed of 22 letters. 
Sly 1G, 17, IS, 10, is an article of clothing. 
My 19, S, 9, 13, is a number. 
My 14,15, 12, is a boy’s nickname. 
My 3, 11, 21, 22, is a spike. 
My 7, 20, 2, 5, is an interjection. 
My 12,1, G, 17 is much used in cooking. 
My 4, 5, is a pronoun. 
My whole is a well-known proverb. 
B. W. Purcell. • 
AUNT SUE'S NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Addie L. B. It grieves me to be unable to reply per¬ 
sonally to hundreds of just such charming letters as yours, 
but I feel none the less grateful for such kind interest, 
and can not have “ too many correspondents.” . 
P. L. S.—Is the “ trick ” you send, original ? Is it not 
already published in the books on “ parlor magic ” ? 
O. 0. Y. S. (“ One of your Subscribers ”). — If “ the boys 
come in from their sledding” “ to puzzle over the arith- 
morems,” my mission is surely fulfilled. 
Daisy. — As you have numbered your questions, I may 
reply briefly. 1. No. 2. The value depends entirely 
upon the merit of the article, or the fame of the author. 
3. A nom de plume is sufficient. 
M. L. E.—No, thank you ; I have more “ cross-word ” 
and “ numerical enigmas ” now on hand than I ever expect 
to use during my natural life, and I belong to a long-lived 
race. 
Glad to hear from O. A. Gage, M. M. L., James Me A, 
P. W. H., CoraP. B., Chs. De L., A. B. Leach, M. P. D.., 
and S. L. Y. 
Thanks for puzzles, etc., to Gustavus M., Harry II. D., 
O. 0. Y. S., Clayton C., St. Johns, “ Scientific,” M. L. 
£., and John Bright. 
In sending contributions for the puzzle department, 
please specify whether they are intended for the Agricul- 
twist, or for Hearth and Home. 
Mow Classic He to Pull laei* j\ose? 
A SENSATIONAL STORY BY “ THE DOCTOR.” 
The characters in my story are three, and I might as 
well introduce them to you at once. They are Will, Nell, 
and little Caoutchouc. To save the trouble of de¬ 
scribing them, I refer you to the picture. Caoutchouc is 
not such a very pretty name, particularly when you pro¬ 
nounce it ko-chuk. If you look in the dictionary, you 
will find that Caoutchouc is an Indian name for India- 
rubber, and before we go on with our story I wish to ask, 
What do you boys and girls know about India-rubber ? 
For that matter, what do the old folks ? “ What has this 
got to do with it? ”—Didn’t I say this was a sensational 
story, and you never can tell how those stories will come 
out. Well! I am not a very old fellow—at least I didn’t 
think so until the other day, when I entered a crowded 
street-car, and a bright-looking youth got up and said, 
“ Take my seat, old gentleman.” now an India-rubber 
story does stretch, to be sure ! To get back ! I am not 
a very old fellow, but I can recollect many things that 
you can not. When I was a youngster like you—never 
mind the date—I had a great fancy for learning to draw. 
I had the run of a fine large library, and you may be sure 
that I hunted up all the books that told anything about 
drawing. There was one book, I have forgotten the name 
of it now, that I liked very much. It said that no false 
marks should be made upon the paper, but if any were 
made, they could be taken out by carefully rubbing them 
with a piece of stale bread. Just here in the book was 
an *, which referred to a foot-note, where it was stated 
that the author had seen a peculiar substance, brought 
from the Indies, and went on to describe it so that any 
one might know it was India-rubber, and stated where 
and at what price a small piece could be bought for rub 
bing out pencil-marks. Now, how different! We wipe 
our feet upon an India-rubber mat, and dress our hair 
with an India-rubber comb. To enumerate all the forms in 
which we are familiar with this article, would require a 
long catalogue. So far from being a rarity, a curious thing 
with which to rub out pencil-marks, it has become one of 
the necessary things of our lives.... How did I first become 
acquainted with it?—In my first pair of India-rubber 
shoes—Philadelphians used to call them “ gums,” and 
people who wished to be very elegant in their speech, 
used to call them “ elastics.” We matter-of-fact people 
called them India-rubber over-shoes, and if we were in a 
hurry and wished to be very economical, we would ab¬ 
breviate to “ rubbers,” but never “ gums ” nor “ elastics.” 
But before I tell you about my first “ rubbers,” let me 
say something about rubber in general. There are sev¬ 
eral trees in tropical countries that have a milky juice, 
and this juice, when dried, is the very thing we are talk¬ 
ing about—India-rubber. If I were to tell you that an 
Euphorbiaceous plant, Siplwnia Mastica , produces the 
most and the best, I don’t think you would be much the 
wiser for it. So we will content ourselves with the fact, 
that a South American tree, which grows in the greatest 
abundance, is always ready to yield its juice, if properly 
treated. A notch is hacked in the trunk of the tree, and 
below this cut a little basin of clay is molded. You will 
say that “ hacking ” is not the best way to make a tree 
“give down,” but the tree does, and lets at least a tea¬ 
cupful of milk run into the little clay basin each day. If 
you were to dip a stick into this milk, and let it dry, you 
would find a thin film of India-rubber on your stick—and 
that is the whole story of India-rubber making, only the 
natives, while they follow the principle, put in many vari¬ 
ations. . “ Milk ? ” you say.—Yes, it looks like milk, and 
tastes not so very unlike it, for I have seen and tasted it. 
Some one discovered that if a little ammonia (which you 
perhaps know as hartshorn) bo added to the milky juice 
of this tree, it can be kept for a long time without change. 
Some one sent a lot of this preserved milk to Boston 
(Boston, yon know, children, is “ the hub,” where every¬ 
thing that is worth knowing is to be found), and there is 
where I saw this wonderful liquid. The South American 
Indians make molds of clay, dip them in the milk of the 
India-rubber tree, and then hold the mold over a fire to 
dry it; then they dip again, dry again, and thus the mold 
gets covered with rubber as thick as they please. When 
the coat is thick enough, they break the clay mold, 
shake out the broken clay, and have a bottle, a bird, or a 
shoe, of just the shape of the mold. 
This brings me to my first rubber shoes. They were 
made in this way. Clay molds were gradually coated 
with the milk, and dried, and the rude shoes sent to mar¬ 
ket. The shoes had no particular shape, but they were 
wonderfully clastic, and would adapt themselves to the 
boot or shoe over which they were worn. You would be 
puzzled to find now a pair of rubbers like my first ones, 
and, as I believe I told you before, I am not such a very 
old fellow, either. Just look at our “Arctics” now I 
How unlike the shoes of- years ago 1 This change 
all comes of an inquisitive American by the name of 
Goodyear. He found that in cold weather our rubbers 
would be as hard as iron. If put in a ivarm place, they 
would become sticky. He wished to have a rubber that 
would he soft in the coldest weather, and not be too soft 
with any moderate amount of heat. So he began to ask 
the rubber questions.... “ Questions ? ”—Yes, all experi¬ 
menting is asking questions. So he mixed a little of this 
thing with the rubber, and said, “ now now ?’’—then he 
put some of that thing with it, and said, “ How now ? ” 
again. Then he used ’tother thing and cooked the rub¬ 
ber, and when he said “ How now ? ” this time, the rubber 
yielded and said, All right 1 Sulphur and cooking did it, 
and all our nice rubber things are based on that discovery. 
Now we have rubber that will make boots to go to the 
North Pole, or water-bags to go to the Equator, and it is 
not changed by heat or cold. Wc have our splendid shoes, 
our capes, elastic material of all sorts, our balloons, our 
dolls and other toys, and even our jewellery, made out of 
that curious substance that was first used to remove pen - 
cil-marks from paper. I began this as a sensational story, 
entitled “ How came he to pull her nose ? ” The intro¬ 
duction has been so long, that I am obliged to make the 
story very short— Because it was an India-rubber doll! 
HOW CAME HE TO PULL HER NOSE ? 
