(776 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May li»10 
Why Should You Use 
Arsenate of Lead when 
DOW 
(Powdered) 
MAGNESIUM 
ARSENATE 
The Modern Agricultural Poison 
Spreads more evenly, sticks better, 
costs less, and is as safe or safer to 
use on tender foliage? 
Use it this year in at least an ex¬ 
perimental way and we are confident 
that you will use no other arsenical 
poison in future. Others are buy¬ 
ing tons of it. 
For prices and particulars address 
THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY 
MIDLAND, MICHIGAN 
The Farmer 
His Own 
Builder 
BY 
H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
A practiced and handy 
book of all kinds of build¬ 
ing information from con¬ 
crete to carpentry. 
PRICE $1.50 
For sale by 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 West 30th Street, New York 
It Plants- 
Sows Fertilizer 
Covers theRows 
Two Excellent Vegetable Books 
By R. L. Watts 
Vegetable Gardening . . . . . $1.75 
Vegetable Forcing ....... 2.00 
Clearly written, practical, convenient for 
reference, covering outdoor and green¬ 
house vegetable work. For sale by 
The Rural New-Yorker 
333 W. 30th St., New York 
The original 
Eclipse planter 
has never been 
equalled for the 
thoroughness 
and accuracy of 
Its work. Only 
planter with con¬ 
caves on each side 
of plow. Drops ferti¬ 
lizer wet or dry each side 
of seed and covers with moist earth. Plants 
perfectly, corn, beans, peas, or puts seed 
in hills or drills. 
Tne 
Embraces Plows, all kinds; Harrows, Spring, Spike, 
Tooth or Disc: Field Markers or Ridgers; Land 
Rollers; Corn Planters, Single or Double Rows; 
Fertilizer Sowers; Corn Sheliers or Huskers; Root 
or Vegetable Cutters; Fodder or Ensilage Cutters 
for Hand or Power; Bob Sleds; Chicopee Hay Ted¬ 
ders; National Hay Rakes, etc. Catalogs mailed 
you for the asking. 
Belcher & Taylor Agricultural Tool Co. 
Box 75 Chicopee Fall*. Mass. 
Horse Vermin 
All kinds of vermin—lice, mange, dandruff, scurf 
—thrive In long hair of horses matted with win¬ 
ter's filth. Clip your horses and avoid such 
troubles. Horses will be healthier and do better 
work if clipped in the spring with a Stewart No. 
1 Ball Bearing Machine. Only $9.75. Send $2.00 
—pay balance on arrival. Write fir catalog. 
CHICAGO FLEXIBLE SHAFT COMPANY 
Dept. A 141. 12th St. and Central Avc. t Chicago, III. 
Caldwell Sash Balances 
if you are going to 
BUILD or REMODEL 
those old windows 
DO-IT-NOW 
Caldwell Sash Balances 
counterbalance sashes at any 
given point. They outwear 
ordinary weights and cords. 
Cheapest method for mod¬ 
ernizing old windows, as 
alterations in sashes and 
frames are not necessary. 
For sale by all Hardware 
Dealers, or 
CALDWELL MFG. CO., F. 5 Jones St., Rochester, N. T. 
All Sorts 
Pulling Out Trees 
On page 653 is a description and an 
illustration of a method of pulling trees 
by means of a team and pulleys. The 
scheme has some merit, but its advantages 
are greatly exaggerated. In using single 
pulleys, as in most blocks, and with par¬ 
allel ropes, the weight is equivalent to the 
power, multiplied by the number of pul¬ 
leys. So that if a team exerted a force 
of 1.000 lbs. and there are six pulleys in 
the two blocks, and the ropes are properly 
attached, a force equivalent to 6.000 lbs. 
will be exerted against the tree. If this is 
sufficient to uproot the tree, the scheme 
will he successful. If not, it will fail. 
Rut if the ropes are attached as shown in 
the illustration, there is no gain whatever 
in the power. The team is pulling direct¬ 
ly against tree and the pulleys in this case 
are useless. c. o. 
Sulphur for Bedbugs 
I saw a request recently for something 
to eradicate bedbugs. If A. S. will do as 
we did when we came to this house 14 
years ago I think she will have success. 
We were advised to burn lump sulphur by 
an old chemist friend before we moved in. 
The place was alive with the insects, and 
I never saw so many spiders in my pre¬ 
vious existence of 46 years. I had lived 
in one house in Brooklyn for 40 years, and 
■ never saw a bug in it, so it was with dis¬ 
may I looked at every crack and crevice 
full of them. We brought 10 lbs. of sul¬ 
phur with us. I secured an old enst- 
away iron pan and bought a basin which 
I half tilled with water, then broke the 
lumps quite small and put as much as I 
could hold in both hands in the pan. 
(’losing all doors and windows tight as 
possible I set the basin in the middle of 
the room and put the pan in the basin, and 
set tire to the sulphur, and'got out quick 
as I could. As our household goods did 
not arrive until dark we had four hours 
to let it fumigate; then, raising the win¬ 
dow sashes from outdoors, let the smoke 
out and in a short while we could enter. 
How sweet it made the old musty place 
smell! This was on the lower floor. I then 
went upstairs and did the same there, 
leaving it closed all night and not opening 
until morning, as the three rooms opened 
into one another and the pest was worse 
there. I can truly say I have never seen 
one since. I have burned a sulphur can¬ 
dle in each room since every Fall just for 
health’s sake, and in the Spring and Fall 
we fumigate our chicken coops in the same 
manner, and it kills every insect pest. Be¬ 
fore using, remove all gilt and silver ar¬ 
ticles, as the sulphur will tarnish such 
things. MRS. J. A. DALEY. 
New Jersey. 
Cooking Turtles, Eels, and Fish 
Part I. 
Near my chum’s house is a pond so 
full of snapping turtles that she cannot 
raise ducks, for the bills are bitten off 
by the turtles, and I know of another 
pond that has any quantity of eels, hut 
no one seems to know how to cook either 
eels or turtles, as the cook hooks only 
give recipes used by the French chefs. 
A country woman’s pantry usually con¬ 
tains by way of seasoning salt, black 
pepper, celery salt, onions and canned 
tomatoes, so you see. the recipes must he 
simple to be of any use. If you could 
print directions telling us liow to kill, 
prepare and cook eels and turtles it would 
help those families that live near such 
ponds in the hills. We have received so 
much help from your paper about our 
canning, and I know you would like to 
help us more. Is there any way of feed¬ 
ing the small turtles until they grow to 
eating size? Can the eels be canned? 
Are the land turtles good to eat? Are 
the fresh water mussels that we find in 
our ponds around here good to eat, and 
can they be canned? Can the turtle 6oup 
ffie canned at home? We think we might 
be helping a little toward saving beef for 
the “boys over there” if we knew how to 
use many of the things that go to waste. 
If the public only knew how delicious 
woodchuck is there wouldn't be one left 
In the country. MBS. J. F. P. 
It is rather surprising at. times to see 
how little the ordinary country person 
knows of the proper methods of preparing 
for the table many of the common foods 
about him. Few of the farmers around 
here have eaten woodchuck. The general 
remark seems to be : “I heard they were 
good, but did not know just how to cook 
them.” The same is true of turtles, eels, 
muskrats (they had to be called marsh 
rabbits before they could go to market), 
raccoons and many other creatures which 
furnish very good meat. Now the pres¬ 
sure of war prices has made people look 
around for things to take the place of 
beef, and they find themselves afraid to 
try these things, because they have never 
learned to handle them. The suggestions 
given below have mostly been tried out 
over the campfire, hut are just as good 
when the heat is supplied by the kitchen 
stove: 
TtTim.ES. —Most of the turtles found in 
the ponds of Eastern North America are 
edible. A few have a very had smell, 
which will keep people from trying to eat 
them. The true land turtles, the wood 
tortoise and the box turtle are protected 
ay law in New York. Some of the others 
are ordinarily too small to be of much 
use as food. Two, however, the leather- 
back and the snapping turtle or “moss- 
back,” are of good size and furnish a 
large amount of good food. I have never 
eaten a leatherback, simply because I 
have never been able to get'a large one. 
hut in Japan there is a large industry 
of growing them for the market. The old 
cook books, in telling how to cook a hare, 
said “first catch your hare.” With the 
snapping turtle the catching is not. much 
less hard than the killing. The best way 
I have found is to hold the turtle up by 
the tail; the head will then reach for 
Pretty nearly everything near. Now 
strike hard right on top of the head with 
something heavy, a piece of iron rod an 
inch in diameter and a foot long is best. 
This will kill the head and neck, but will 
not. stop the feet from pushing your knife 
out of the way in the later operations. 
Around here the usual way then is to 
go right ahead and cut. up the turtle. 
Farther south they usually scald him 
next. This takes off all tile true shell 
and outer skin and mostly stops the move¬ 
ments of the feet. The next thing is to 
get the two parts of the shell separated. 
In the snapping turtle there is a place 
near the upper shell wh^re the bridge 
can be cut through with a knife, hut in 
most others a saw must he used. When 
the plastron or lower shell has been cut 
oil and the “insides” removed, most of 
the meat will he found in six chunks— 
four legs, the neck and the tail. Cut off 
the small masses of yellow fat, parboil 
and fry or fricassee. In the South the 
parts of the shell are then chopped up 
and boiled down for soup. The strong 
taste seems to lie in the masses of yellow 
fat, and as not all of them can be re¬ 
moved it. is necessary to parboil. This 
should be carried on until the meat is 
about cooked. The frying or fricasseeing 
is little more than warming up the al¬ 
ready cooked meat. This meat or the 
soup can he canned, hut great pains must 
he taken to s'"- that everything is just 
right, or it ill . coil. 
l ittle ’n 1 dene in the way of feed¬ 
ing or. gr. in,, turtles without a rather 
extensive p mt. The young of various 
ages must i> • kv t separate and away 
from the old ~ies About 13 years ago 
a Japanese scientist: published an account 
of a large turtle farm near Tokyo, where 
in 1004 were pioduced something over 
eight tons of three to five-year-old tur¬ 
tles, worth about 40 cents per pound. 
This establishment is in three parts and 
covers about 35 acres of ponds. Elabo¬ 
rate provisions are made for caring for 
the young and for feeding all the turtles. 
Chopped fish and shellfish, fish scrap, etc., 
are the foods used, it being necessary to 
have them fresh and in good condition. 
It was found a good thing to raise carp 
in the same ponds with the turtles, so 
that the water would always be muddy 
and the turtles would keep looking for 
food. They are so shy that they keep 
hidden much of the time through the day 
if the water is clear. 
Eels. —In preparing eels for cooking 
they should be skinned, an operation full 
of terrors for the beginner, but very sim¬ 
ple when understood. Simply cut 
through the skin just back of the head, 
then down the back a few inches. If 
fingers and finger nails are strong a cor¬ 
ner of the skin can be held well enough 
to pull it all off, but it is better to catch 
the corner with a pair of pliers, when a 
good pull will strip off the whole skin 
quickly. The rest of the cleaning is the 
same as for any other fish. If the eels 
are to be smoked the skin is usually left 
on. The following methods of cooking 
fish are copied from an article contributed 
by the Bureau of Fisheries to the August 
number of “Forest and Stream.” The 
only seasoning not usual in a farm 
woman’s cupboard is the bay leaf, and 
many persons, myself included, much pre¬ 
fer that it be left out of the food. 
Boiled Fish. —In a kettle large enough 
to float the fish, pour boiling water, and 
salt it well, allowing one tablespoonful to 
every quart of water. Slice an onion, or 
a lemon, or crumble a hay leaf into the 
water, tie the fish in a cloth, and boil 
until done. Then unwrap carefully, tak¬ 
ing off the skin if you choose, and serve 
with hot or cold “Tartar” sauce, egg 
sauce, or melted butter. The English boil 
fish in water which contains also onion, 
carrot, turnip, parsley, bay leaf, and 
other herbs. This is impractical in camp, 
but a very good substitute is found by 
frying fish in savory fat. Chop fine one 
onion, one carrot, a small turnip, some 
parsley and a bay loaf. Place in a frying 
kettle with a pound of leaf lard or bacon 
fat; let the mixture heat through very 
slowly and let fry gently on the back of 
the stove until the vegetables have become 
dry, brown and mealy. They must not 
burn or the fat is worthless. Strain 
through a cloth and put away in a cool 
place until needed. Then use this fat for 
frying small fish which have been cleaned, 
wiped dry, and rolled in salted corn- 
meal. It will add a most appetizing 
flavor to a lowly chub and can easily he 
carried on a camping trip if packed in 
friction top tins. All kinds of fish are 
extremely palatable when stewed. 
ALFRED O. WEED. 
