Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1880 — USEFUL AND SUGGESTIVE. [ARTICLE]

USEFUL AND SUGGESTIVE.

Codfish balls should have very Ifttie codfish in them. . x ,i . Iviks growing within doors we greatly benefited by washing the dust from their leaves once a week with a sponge or soft cloth. Guinea fowls will keep aD bugs and insects of every’ description off garden vines. They will not scratch like other fowls* or harm the most delicate plants —Exchange. Throw’ your coal ashes around fruit trees and under currants and gooseberries. Don’t throw away or sell wood ashes, but use them around your fruit trees.—/’ormers’ ffemev. Am old and careful fanner of Indiana, after thirty-three years’ experience, says he has made most on sheep for the amoifnt of capital invested, arid the least on horses. — lowa State Register. Farmers who are fortunate enough to have on their premises an excellent spring bursting from a hill-side might at no great cost construct a fish-pond and raise speckled trout in abundance. —Exchange. A gentleman in England has discovered that water-cress will grow in dry soil. Some seeds were dropped by birds near his house, which produced plants that grew very finely. The stalks and leaves were smaller than those of plants growing in a spring brook, but were highly flavored. The New England Farmer says that a gardener of some notoriety carried several articles to a fair in Vermont, and among them beautiful specimens of the egg plant. The judges inspected the article, and very wisely awarded the gardener the fifth premium on a new variety of turnips. If hens get into the habit of eating eggs, take enough bran and corn meal of equal parts for one feeding, and enough vinegar warmed to make the meal wet enough for the hens to eat. Mix together ana feed it to the hens. Repeat this once the same day.—Farmer's Boy, in Country Gentleman. Meringue Rice Pudding.—One teacup of rice, one pint of milk, butter the size of an egg, five eggs, two lemons. Boil the rice soft in the milk, add the butter, the yelks of the eggs and the grated rinds of the lemons. Bake this twenty minutes. Beat the whites of the eggs to a froth with two tablespoonfuls of white sugar, add the juice of the lemons, spread this on the pudding when a little cool, and set it back in the oven to harden and brown lightly. Bird’s-Nest Pudding.—Take six or seven cooking apples, pare them, and remove the cores without breaking the apples. Place them in a pie-dish; next wash thoroughly four heaped tablespoonfuls' of sago; mix with sufficient cold water to fill the dish containing the apples, and bake in a moderate oven. Cherries, prunes, etc., may be used instead of apples, or tapioca instead of sago; and, if well made, the pudding is palatable, wholesomd and inexpensive. To be served with sugar and milk, or cream if practicable. Farmers, now that they have time to think over things, should consider whether the space they allow for their fardens is as large as it could profitably e. There has been some improvement in this respect during the last ten years, but there is room for a great deal more. A garden should be Targe enough to raise a full supply of all kinds of desirable vegetablas for both winter and summer. Some vegetables, it is true, cannot be kept for use through the winter, but many can, and they are about as palatable as in the summer months. Every family should put up their own tomatoes, com, okra, beans (winter and lima), cabbage and sauerkraut, onions, carrots, celery, radishes, .horse-radish (in a bed), and so on. When once done, so as to meet fully the wants of the family up to May, they will then only appreciate the desirability of it.— Germantown Telegraph.