Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1875 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

—The currant ow'es its refreshing acidity to malic acid, which makes it peculiarly grateful when prepared as a drink for both sick and well. A pleasant impromptu drink is made by mashing a few currants and pouring them into water; then Strain the whole through anything that will retain the stems, skins and seeds; sweeten, and reduce with water to taste, grating in a little nutmeg if liked. —To keep plums from falling off before they get ripe, bore a hole right through the center of the tree. I never tried it, but one of my neighbors said that he did, and his plums never fell off last year. He said that the sap goes too much to the plums, which is the cause of their falling off. Try it. It won’t hurt the tree. I saw a pear tree that had a hole right through the body of it, and it was as full of pears as it could hang.— Cor. Cincinnati Timet. —H cow that is a hard milker can be remedied thus: Take a clean, smooth, knitting-needle wire, No. 16, heat it redhot (use a candle at your side, and heat about half an inch from the end) and burn out the orifice. Perform the operation quickly (say one second), and the cow will not move, nor will she notice it afterward. No blood runs, no soreness . occurs. I have known it to be tried and never knew it to fail. Don’t wring or twist the needle; shove it straight in and straight out are the directions. If you wish to use a larger or smaller needle do so, but not so large as to make the cow lose her milk.— N. E. Homestead. t —To make cocoa-nut and apple pudding select large, rich, tart apples, such as are easily; cooked, greenings or Newtown pippins, if possible, pare and grate them on a coarse grater; then add one part dessicated cocoa-nut to four parts grated apple, or one part of fresh grated cocoanut to three parts apple, and add the requisite amount of sugar. The latter is readily determined by the taste, but no rule can well be given, since some apples require more sugar than others. If not sufficiently tart to be brisk add a little lemon juice, say one lemon to eachgpiart of apple, with enough additional sugar to sweeten. Bake half or three-quarters of an hour, or until the apple is well-cooked. Serve warm or cold, better ' cold, without dressing. —Directions are given in the Journal of Horticulture, London, for forming neat little miniature trees in pots, especial reference being made to two of the most deserving plants for this treatment. The very pretty ivy-leaved geranium, “2?Elegante," may be trained to a neat little umbrella-shaped trellis, which, during the season, it will completely cover with its variegated foliage. To intensify the color of the latter, the stem may be slightly cut in places and then exposed to the sun. Another novel specimen may be formed by grafting a shoot of the I resine Lindeni upon the variegated form of the old I. Verschaffetti, allowing a few shoots from the latter to grow up and encircle the former. The grafting process is readily performed on this class of plants, and is very effective. If a young plant of the golden-leaved thyme is carefully grown, and the side shoots near the base cut off, one may soon form an attractive little tree which will be not unlike the celebrated dwarf plants so common among Japanese gardeners, and, indeed, far more natural and handsome. Such experiments add a zest to gardening operations entirely unknown to those who content themselves with the old orthodox methods of their teachers.